DictionaryAI

cost

KAWST/ˈkɔst/KOST/ˈkɒst/

Pluralcosts

Verbcosts, costing, cost

10 meanings of cost

Practice

  1. 1
    pricenouncountable or uncountable
    The amount of money, time, or other resources required or used to obtain, make, do, or maintain something.

    The cost of living has climbed steadily over the past year.

    Engineers estimated the total cost before construction began.

    UsageUsually the cost of something; the plural is common for spending: cut costs. For a shop item, price is more usual.

    Similarprice, expense, outlay, expenditure, charge

  2. 2
    be priced atverbtransitive
    To have as a price; to require a specified payment in order to be bought or done.

    Tickets to the show cost ninety dollars each.

    Replacing the engine will cost nearly four thousand dollars.

    UsageThe past is cost: it cost ten dollars (not incorrect: costed). The person can come first: it cost me ten dollars.

    Note

    Marie Belloc Lowndes's The Lodger (1913) has red damask curtains that "had cost a mere song," the idiom for something bought very cheaply.

  3. 3
    downsidenouncountable or uncountable
    A loss or negative consequence that something brings about or requires.

    The environmental cost of the dam outweighed its benefits.

    They won the case, but at great personal cost.

    UsageOften at the cost of something or at a heavy cost: at the cost of her health.

    Similarprice, toll, sacrifice, penalty

    Oppositebenefit

    Note

    The plural lets a writer sort the damage by kind, as in Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988): "regardless of costs, human or ecological."

  4. 4
    cause to loseverbtransitive
    To cause someone to lose, give up or suffer something, such as money, time, health or happiness, as a result of an action or event.

    The scandal cost the mayor her second term.

    A single mistake can cost a pilot precious seconds.

    UsageThe person comes first, then what is lost: it cost him his job.

    Note

    Here the second object is something lost rather than paid: lives, a term in office, or "ten nights' watchings" in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The double-object pattern is the same as in the price sense (cost them their lives), but nothing is bought in return. The loss can even be counted in resources, as when cardboard packaging "costs 1bn trees."

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing. folger.edu
    • “ten nights' watchings” occurs in Much Ado About Nothing; the speaker is Leonato. folger.edu
    • “costs 1bn trees” is an attested quotation describing cardboard used to package home deliveries. theguardian.com

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of cost apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 2, 4, 6

Latin "consto" ("stand together") gave Medieval Latin "costo" and then Old French "coster" ("to cost"), which reached English as Middle English "costen."

Meanings 1, 3, 5

This comes from Middle English "cost," "coust," from the verb "costen" ("to cost"), which has the same origin as the verb above.

Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

  • The noun derives from Middle English cost, coust, from the verb costen, meaning “to cost.” en.wiktionary.org
  • The noun and the verb share their earlier origin. en.wiktionary.org
Meaning 7

This comes from Middle English "cost," from Old English "cost" ("option, choice, manner, condition") and Old Norse "kostr" ("choice, opportunity, quality"), from Proto-Germanic "*kustuz" ("choice, trial"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European "*ǵéwstus" ("taste"). It is related to "choose" and is a doublet of "gusto."

Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 8 facts

Meaning 8

Latin "costa" passed through Old French "coste" into Middle English "coste." The words "coast" and "cuesta" are doublets of it.