What does devoted mean in this sentence?
So I'm reading a book and I came across a sentence I couldn't grasp the meaning of, which is :

#I devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking of death

About the grammar in this sentence, why is it "to thinking" and not "devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time thinking of death"?

Thank you !

Question

What does devoted mean in this sentence?
So I'm reading a book and I came across a sentence I couldn't grasp the meaning of, which is :

#I devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking of death

About the grammar in this sentence, why is it "to thinking" and not "devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time thinking of death"?

Thank you !

Answer

"Devoted" needs a preposition (and it doesn't have to come immediately afterwards)

Example: "devoted time to thinking..."
Or "devoted to thinking"

Answer

Devoted means committed.

Answer

I'm not sure the actual grammatical reason, but "devoted" is almost always followed by "to" in a sentence. 99% of the time you will use "devoted to" + ___ing. Maybe 1% of the time you will use "devoted in" instead, but it's pretty uncommon.