cost
/kɒst/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/kɔst/
cost verb: to incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.
Verb
cost (third-person singular simple present costs, present participle costing, simple past and past participle cost or costed)
- To incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.
- This shirt cost $50, while this was cheaper at only $30.
- It will cost you a lot of money to take a trip around the world.
- To cause something to be lost; to cause the expenditure or relinquishment of.
- Trying to rescue the man from the burning building cost them their lives.
- the packaging of home-delivered products now accounts for 30% of the solid rubbish the US generates annually, and the cardboard alone costs 1bn trees.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian
- To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
- to do him wanton rites, which cost them woe1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- LUKE: "That little droid is going to cost me a lot of trouble."1977, Star Wars
- To calculate or estimate a price.
- I'd cost the repair work at a few thousand.
- To cost (a person) a great deal of money or suffering.
- I can give you the names, but it'll cost you.
- That's going to cost you!
Noun (1)
cost (countable and uncountable, plural costs)
- Amount of money, time, etc. that is required or used.
- The total cost of the new complex was an estimated $1.5 million.
- We have to cut costs if we want to avoid bankruptcy.
- A negative consequence or loss that occurs or is required to occur.
- Spending all your time working may earn you a lot of money at the cost of your health.
- The army won the battle decisively, but at a cost of many lives.
Noun (2)
cost (plural costs)
Noun (3)
cost (plural costs)
Proper noun capitalized: Cost
Cost (plural Costs)
- A surname.
cost meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
cost in Hindi
- to incur a charge, a price
- मूल्य mūlya, दाम dām, लागत lāgat
- amount of money spent for a purpose
- दाम dām, क़ीमत qīmat, मूल्य mūlya
cost in Tamil
- to incur a charge, a price
- செலவு celavu
cost in Urdu
- amount of money spent for a purpose
- دام dām, قیمت qīmat, لاگت lāgat
cost in Bengali
- the cost or charge paid in advance
- অগ্রিমক ogrimok
- cost, price
- কস্ট kosṭ
- cost
- লাগানো laganō
More languagesFewer languages
- cost in Malayalam
- ചെലവ് celavŭ
- cost in Kannada
- ಬೀರು bīru
- cost in Odia
- ଖର୍ଚ୍ଚ
- cost in Sanskrit
- व्यय vyaya
- cost in Assamese
- দাম dam
- cost in Nepali
- पर्नु parnu
- cost in Tagalog
- halaga
- cost in Arabic
- سَاوَى sāwā, كَلَّفَ kallafa, تَكَلَّفَ takallafa, تَكْلِفَة taklifa
- cost in Malay
- harga, belanja, kos
- cost in Indonesian
- menghabiskan biaya
- cost in Persian
- ارزیدن arzidan, هزینه hazine, قیمت qeymat
- cost in Thai
- ราคา raa-kaa, ค่าใชีข่าย khā chî cāy
Examples of cost in a sentence
- The average cost of a new house is twice as much as it was 20 years ago.
- Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years.1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The...
- Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:
- Peer polity competition drives increased complexity and resource consumption regardless of costs, human or ecological.1988, Joseph Tainter, “Summary and Implications”, in The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page...
Forms of cost
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | costs |
| present participle | costing |
| past participle | cost |
| past | cost |
| past participle | costed |
| past | costed |
| Noun | |
| plural | costs |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Costs |
Origin of cost
From Middle English costen, from Old French coster, couster (“to cost”), from Medieval Latin cōstō, from Latin cōnstō (“stand together”).
From Middle English cost, coust, from costen (“to cost”), from the same source as above.
From Middle English cost, from Old English cost (“option, choice, possibility, manner, way, condition”), from Old Norse kostr (“choice, opportunity, chance, condition, state, quality”), from Proto-Germanic *kustuz (“choice, trial”) (or Proto-Germanic *kustiz (“choice, trial”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵéwstus (“to enjoy, taste”). Cognate with Icelandic kostur, German dialectal Kust (“taste, flavour”), Dutch kust (“choice, choosing”), North Frisian kest (“choice, estimation, virtue”), West Frisian kêst (“article of law, statute”), Old English cyst (“free-will, choice, election, the best of anything, the choicest, picked host, moral excellence, virtue, goodness, generosity, munificence”), Latin gustus (“taste”). Related to choose. Doublet of gusto.
Words formed from cost
- cost an arm and a leg
- cost a pretty penny
- cost out
- cost the earth
- cost up
- how much does it cost
- miscost
- recost
- aftercost
- costable
- cost base
- cost-benefit
- cost-cutting
- cost cutting
- cost disease
- cost-effective
- cost efficiency
- cost-efficient
- cost estimate
- costful
- cost function
- costimate
- costimation
- costless
- costly
- cost-prohibitive
- cost-push
- cost-saving
- cost saving
- costware
- costworthy
- high-cost
- isocost
- low-cost
- oncost
- overcost
- social cost
- transaction cost
- at all costs
Phrases with cost
- cost oil
- cost dear
- cost mark
- cost plus
- menu cost
- sunk cost
- unit cost
- cost marks
- fixed cost
- prime cost
- actual cost
- at any cost
47 more phrasesFewer phrases
- carbon cost
- cost object
- cost prices
- direct cost
- landed cost
- closing cost
- cost centers
- cost centres
- cost savings
- flyaway cost
- private cost
- business cost
- cost overruns
- indirect cost
- marginal cost
- negative cost
- variable cost
- wellhead cost
- appraisal cost
- at the cost of
- came at a cost
- come at a cost
- cost estimates
- cost functions
- flotation cost
- operating cost
- unexpired cost
- accounting cost
- comes at a cost
- cost avoidances
- cost objectives
- designs to cost
- historical cost
- coming at a cost
- contingency cost
- low cost carrier
- opportunity cost
- low cost carriers
- cost of goods sold
- cost benefit analyses
- dollar cost averaging
- ultralow cost carrier
- ultra low cost carrier
- ultra-low cost carrier
- ultra low cost carriers
- marginal cost of capital
- weighted-average cost of capital
Words that rhyme with cost
4 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about cost
- What does cost mean?
- Cost means to incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.
- What is cost in Hindi?
- Cost in Hindi is मूल्य (mūlya), दाम (dām), लागत (lāgat). See Cost meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use cost in a sentence?
- The average cost of a new house is twice as much as it was 20 years ago.
- What part of speech is cost?
- Cost can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce cost?
- Cost is pronounced /kɒst/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of cost?
- The past tense of cost is cost.
Words near cost in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cost (page history and authors); Cost (page history and authors); অগ্রিমক (Bengali) (page history and authors); ചെലവ് (Malayalam) (page history and authors); cost (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); व्यय (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); पर्नु (Nepali) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-to cost.ogg, en-us-cost.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cost.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cost. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.