DictionaryAI

price

PRYS/pɹaɪs/

Pluralprices

Verbprices, pricing, priced

7 meanings of price

Practice

  1. 1
    amount chargednouncountable or uncountable
    The amount of money required to buy or obtain something.

    The price of the house exceeded their entire budget.

    Rising fuel prices affected the cost of shipping.

    UsageA high or low price (not incorrect: an expensive price); the price of the house; sold at a good price.

    Similarcost, charge, rate, fee

  2. 2
    set the costverbtransitive
    To decide and set the amount of money an item should sell for.

    The dealer priced the antique table well above its market value.

    Managers must price each item competitively to attract buyers.

    UsageUsually with at for the amount: shirts priced at twenty dollars each.

  3. 3
    harm sufferednounusually singular
    The unwanted consequence or sacrifice that results from an action or choice.

    Constant travel was the price he paid for career success.

    Communities near the new factories often pay the price of rapid industrial growth.

    UsageUsually pay a (high) price for something; also at a price and the price of fame.

    Similarcost, penalty, sacrifice, toll

    Note

    Here the cost is counted in loss rather than coin. Its natural partner is pay: one pays a high price for folly, and George Orwell, in The Lion and the Unicorn (1941), says Chamberlain "did not want to pay the price either of peace or of war."

  4. 4
    ask the costverbtransitive
    To ask or find out how much something costs.

    He spent the morning pricing used trucks at three dealerships.

    Before buying, she liked to price every option carefully.

    Note

    A shopper's verb, and an everyday one: you price flights, used trucks or a new kitchen by finding out what different sellers ask. It shares its form with setting a selling price, and the person doing it tells them apart: a buyer prices what they might buy, while a seller prices what they have to sell.

Less common meanings

  1. 5
    worthnounliteraryuncountable
    The worth, value, or excellence of something or someone.

    Her grandmother's letters, faded and torn as they were, were beyond price to her.

    For the young violinist, her old teacher's patient advice proved a pearl of great price, worth more than any expensive instrument.

    UsageMostly in set phrases: beyond price, of great price; in plain writing, worth or value is more usual.

    Similarvalue, worth

    Note

    An older, loftier meaning that now survives mainly in elevated phrasing, since Middle English price already meant 'excellence' as well as 'cost'. The King James Bible of 1611 has 'Her price is far above rubies,' and John Keble in 1827 writes of treasures 'of countless price.'

  2. 6
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To set a value upon something; to hold it in esteem or prize it.
    Note

    The verb once did the work now done by prize and value, and the overlap is no accident: Middle English price meant both 'price' and 'prize'. Today, pricing a thing means fixing or finding out what it sells for, as with the living commercial verb, and never cherishing it.

  3. 7
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To pay the penalty for something; to make reparation for a wrong.
    Thou damned wight, / The author of this fact, we here behold, / What iustice can but iudge against thee right, / With thine owne bloud to price his bloud, here shed in sight.
    1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
    Note

    An obsolete verb of retribution, heard in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590): 'With thine owne bloud to price his bloud.' The pattern is a life or blood given in payment for a wrong. Modern English says pay for or atone for instead.

Practice

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

Origin

From Middle English price meaning price, value, or excellence, borrowed from Old French pris, from Latin pretium ("worth, price, money spent, wages, reward"); it is related to words like praise, precious, and appreciate.

Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 7 facts