[ US /əˈfɔɹd/ ]
[ UK /ɐfˈɔːd/ ]
VERB
  1. be able to spare or give up
    I can't afford to spend two hours with this person
  2. have the financial means to do something or buy something
    We can't afford to send our children to college
    Can you afford this car?
  3. afford access to
    the door opens to the patio
    The French doors give onto a terrace
  4. be the cause or source of
    Our meeting afforded much interesting information
    He gave me a lot of trouble

How To Use afford In A Sentence

  • Their dried dung is found everywhere, and is in many places the only fuel afforded by the plains; their skulls, which last longer than any other part of the animal, are among the most familiar of objects to the plainsman; their bones are in many districts so plentiful that it has become a regular industry, followed by hundreds of men (christened "bone hunters" by the frontiersmen), to go out with wagons and collect them in great numbers for the sake of the phosphates they yield; and Bad Lands, plateaus, and prairies alike, are cut up in all directions by the deep ruts which were formerly buffalo trails. VIII. The Lordly Buffalo
  • Most choose to buy in more affordable villages a little way away. Times, Sunday Times
  • Civilian life affords us the luxury of a good deal of deontology — better to let ten guilty men go free, and so on. One Waterboarding Is a Tragedy; A Million Is a Statistic
  • After a quarter of an hour, hot buttered toast on a covered hot water plate, with the Staffordshire cottage tea pot in its floral cosy, arrived.
  • But either way, placater or elitist, he has headed us down an evil road by deepening a war we couldn ` t afford eight years ago when it started and certainly can ` t afford after the Bush-Cheney fiasco in Iraq. The Student Operated Press
  • I can't afford to have bands who won't pull the crowds.
  • Therefore, if the vaccine afforded protection for life, there would be a very strong argument in favor of universal vaccination - no chicken pox and no shingles.
  • Well, having the largest economy confers an advantages in affording a very large military, and having a very large military was useful in the era of great power military conflicts. Matthew Yglesias » Will China Ever Dominate?
  • Books in digital format, also known as e-books, can be read on devices lacking the power and screen space to afford a regular Web browser.
  • Lily : A famous land agent said that the young people shouldn't afford an apartment.
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