cannot afford

afford | American Dictionary

afford
verb[ I/T ]
us/əˈfɔrd, əˈfoʊrd/
to have enough money or time to buy, keep, or do something:
[ T ]I don’t know how he can afford a new car.
[ I ]Can you afford to take any time off work?

afford | Business English

afford
verb[ T ]
uk /əˈfɔːd/us
 can afford
to be able to buy or do something because you have enough money:
He is over 60 and can't afford his pension contributions.
can afford to do sthDebt is not necessarily a bad thing if the consumer can afford to pay it back.
to be able to do something without it causing problems:
can afford to do sthWe can afford to wait.
I can't afford to pay attention to any controversy.

Examples of afford

afford
Cost utility analysis permits the cost of treatment to be considered according to the amount of benefit afforded to the patients.
Using only the most rigorous design, on the other hand, ignores the probative importance of replication and corroboration that multiple studies afford.
The third goal is related to the second: analysis/synthesis should afford musically interesting transformations and control.
There really seems little point in affording these peripheral figures a platform.
For workers as "cell proprietors" were to be afforded crucial domains of discretion, albeit ones traversed by tensions and potential conflicts.
Many of these women probably were economically independent and could afford to have homes of their own.
The idea that we can arbitrarily fix the value of goods so that people can afford them is economically unfeasible.
It is now understood that it is not arbitrary but collectively regulated to afford the colony elevated group flexibility.
The local rural economies to which men returned afforded few cashcropping or other productive opportunities.
This is partly because nursing homes tend to be larger, and consequently afford greater economies of scale in provision.
It can no longer afford to ignore its own epistemological foundations.
Information on this vaccine is given to all families attending the clinic, but is limited to those who can afford to purchase the vaccine.
A ' new category of assisted ' was emerging, the pensioners on fixed incomes and smallholders who could no longer afford a doctor's visit.
The communities can afford to take the moderate hostilities of others because their selfesteem has not been badly damaged.
And, now we can all afford a beautifully produced composite copy at a remarkably affordable price.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.