finances

1. 1
   nounplural

   The funds and other financial resources available to a person, business, or government.

   The couple reviewed their finances before buying a house.

   Years of overspending left the city's finances in ruins.

   Similarfunds, resources, budget, means, assets

   Note

   Always plural in this meaning, so verbs and pronouns agree in the plural: the city's finances are in ruins, and they will take years to repair. It almost always comes with an owner, such as the couple's, the city's or a household's, because it describes whose money is in what condition. It pairs naturally with verbs of checking, managing and repairing.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of finance.

   The minister presented the nation's finances to parliament.

   Their household finances needed urgent attention after the layoff.

   Note

   The plural shifts the meaning toward the money itself. The singular finance usually names an activity or a discipline, either managing money or the science of managing it. Finances tends to mean the resources being managed, as in a nation's or a household's finances, which is the "funds" meaning. The same spelling is also a verb form: the government finances the project.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of finance.

   The government finances the project through public bonds.

   A private investor finances most of the team's travel.

   Note

   The verb in everyday use is transitive: someone finances something, and the object is the project, purchase or undertaking being paid for, as in the government finances the project through bonds. An intransitive use, simply managing money, also exists. Older English had a darker sense, paying or extorting ransom, which is now obsolete.

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