What is the difference between defray, sponsor, and fund (all verbs)? For me, they are interchangeable:
Oxford Dictionary:
- Defray: Provide money to pay (a cost or expense)
The proceeds from the raffle help to defray the expenses of the evening- Sponsor: Provide funds for (a project or activity or the person carrying it out)
Joe is being sponsored by a government training scheme- Fund: Provide with money for a particular purpose
The World Bank refused to fund the project
I can see that in the definition of defray, we don't have the object to be paid. But with any spending it must be implicit that there is something to be paid, right? So I don't know what the difference between them is.
Best Answer
The definitions for each of these words intersect at provide money, but each word carries unique connotations that shade the context of that provision . The discrete connotations of each word can be infered from their etymologies, and their current usage.
Defray has connotations rooted in fixing a broken situation:
Whichever etymology is accepted, the connotation of defray implies that a separate party engages in an activity and experiences costs or expenses that the defraying party agrees to share, often after the fact, but almost always in an ancillary relationship:
Fund has connotations rooted in laying a foundation:
The connotation of the verb fund implies that the money is a fundamental contingency of the activity, and often that the funding party is committed at a fundamental level:
Sponsor has connotations rooted in a solemn guarantee:
The connotation of sponsor implies that the sponsoring party is committing superior resources--often but not always money--to support the expensive or risky activity of another less endowed party:
Though the words share a common definition, the various shades of meaning in each word makes it more suitable in some contexts and less suitable in other contexts. From the corpus: