not necessary; that can be got rid ofThey looked on music and art lessons as dispensable.oppositeessential,indispensableWord Originearly 16th cent. (in the sense ‘acceptable in special circumstances’): from medieval Latin dispensabilis, from Latin dispensare ‘continue to weigh out or disburse’, from the verb dispendere, based on pendere ‘weigh’.
See dispensable in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary
