1 [nopassive] (usually used with can, could or be able to, especially in negative sentences or questions) to have enough money or time to be able to buy or to do sth:
[VN] Can we afford a new car? * None of them could afford ｣50 for a ticket. * She felt she couldn't afford any more time off work. * I'd give up work if I could afford it. * [Vtoinf] We can't afford to go abroad this summer. * She never took a taxi, even though she could afford to. * [VNtoinf] He couldn't then afford the money to go on the trip.
2 [nopassive] (usually used with can or could, especially in negative sentences and questions) if you say that you can't afford to do sth, you mean that you should not do it because it will cause problems for you if you do:
[Vtoinf] We cannot afford to ignore this warning. * (formal) They could ill afford to lose any more staff. * [VN] We cannot afford any more delays.
3 (formal) to provide sb with sth:
[VN] The tree affords some shelter from the sun. * The legislation aims to afford protection to employees. * [VNN] The programme affords young people the chance to gain work experience.
affordability noun [U]
affordable adjective:
affordable prices / housing
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for afford is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is afford a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, afford is tagged as verb.
Does afford appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — afford appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
