From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdevotede‧vote /dɪˈvəʊt $ -ˈvoʊt/ ●●○ AWL verb [transitive] 1 DO something/TAKE ACTIONto use all or most of your time, effort etc in order to do something or help someone SYN dedicatedevote your time/energy/attention etc to something He devoted his energies to writing films.devote yourself to something She devoted herself full-time to her business.RegisterIn everyday English, people usually say put time/energy etc into something rather than devote time/energy etc to something:He put a lot of time into the project.2 to use a particular area, period of time, or amount of space for a specific purposedevote something to something The meeting will be devoted to health and safety issues.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
devote• He was right to devote a lot of attention to them.• He's decided to give up racing and devote all his time to his farm in Ireland.• Many schools devote almost a third of the allotted time for each lesson to these exercises.• He wanted a woman who could devote herself to a man, kids, family.• She was deciding to devote herself to supporting him as he leapt from one peak to another.• He would devote more time to her.• She intends to devote the next ten years to her charitable work.• Some will resign from big business and devote themselves to turning an idea or hobby into a business of their own.• At any output of films in excess of Q *;, society would be devoting too many resources to the film industry.• We shall look at it in some detail in this chapter, devoting two sections, 5.1 and 5.2, to it.devote your time/energy/attention etc to something• Giving our time and devoting our attention to what they say is therefore crucially important in the process of counselling.Origin devote (1500-1600) Latin devotus, past participle of devovere, from vovere “to promise” 