Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use cost in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Cost means to incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price. Example: “This shirt cost $50, while this was cheaper at only $30.”

Examples of cost by meaning

verbTo 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.
  • 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...

verbTo 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

verbTo require to be borne or suffered; to cause.

  • LUKE: "That little droid is going to cost me a lot of trouble."1977, Star Wars

verbTo calculate or estimate a price.

  • I'd cost the repair work at a few thousand.

verbTo 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!

nounAmount 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.
  • The average cost of a new house is twice as much as it was 20 years ago.

nounA 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.
  • 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...

More sentences with cost

  • Guests can be shuttled to and from the hotel for no extra cost.From the entry shuttle
  • I played 18 holes yesterday. The second hole today cost me three strokes over par.From the entry hole
  • We have to keep our unit costs down if we want to make a profit.From the entry unit
  • The general ordered the colonel to hold his position at all costs.From the entry hold
  • This proposal meets my requirements. The company agrees to meet the cost of any repairs.From the entry meet
  • They have put the cost of repairs at around £10 million.From the entry put
  • I want to buy one that costs somewhere between forty and fifty dollars.From the entry between
  • A pint of beer in the saloon bar costs a penny more than in the public bar.From the entry saloon
  • This weekend's receipts alone cover our costs to mount the production!From the entry receipt
  • That's all fine and dandy, but how much does it cost?From the entry dandy
  • They sought out cost adders with an eye toward eliminating them.From the entry adder
  • Getting a car tricked out like that will cost you 50 large.From the entry large
  • The cost of an opulent wedding is spare change to a millionaire.From the entry spare change
  • I will deduct the cost of the can of peas from the money I owe you.From the entry deduct
  • The state estimates that the construction project will cost about two crores.From the entry crore
  • The company made good the damage by paying my repair costs.From the entry make good
  • The company made good on the damage by paying my repair costs.From the entry make good
  • That little trinket around her neck must have cost a bundle.From the entry trinket
  • As usual, that broker's GFE was off by more than 30% from the final cost.From the entry GFE
  • They shelved the entire project when they heard how much it would cost.From the entry shelve
  • We don't yet know the exact cost, but 20 million dollars sounds like a nice round number.From the entry round number
  • I thought I'd try my hand at woodworking, until I saw how much the tools cost.From the entry try one's hand
  • They avoid conflict at all costs because of their deep-rooted fear of upsetting people.From the entry deep-rooted
  • We can build a specialized part for you, but an off-the-shelf product will probably cost less.From the entry off-the-shelf
  • The government bailout of that corporation is going to cost the taxpayers a hundred billion dollars.From the entry bailout

Meaning of cost

  1. verb To incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.
  2. verb To cause something to be lost; to cause the expenditure or relinquishment of.
  3. verb To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.

Full definition of cost

Questions about cost in a sentence

How do you use cost in a sentence?
Cost is used as a verb and noun. For example: “This shirt cost $50, while this was cheaper at only $30.”
What is a short sentence with cost?
“That's going to cost you!”
What does cost mean?
Cost means to incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cost (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use cost in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/cost. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.