cost

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒst/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔst/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑst/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒst, -ɔːst

Etymology 1

From Middle English costen, from Old French coster, couster (“to cost”), from Medieval Latin cōstō, from Latin cōnstō (“stand together”).

Verb

cost (third-person singular simple present costs, present participle costing, simple past and past participle cost or costed)

1. (transitive, ditransitive) 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.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., , , →OCLC, page 0016:

     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. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; […].

2. (transitive, ditransitive) 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.

   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎:

     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.

   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     though it cost me ten nights' watchings

3. To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     to do him wanton rites, which cost them woe

   • 1977, Star Wars:

     LUKE: "That little droid is going to cost me a lot of trouble."

4. To calculate or estimate a price.

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

5. (transitive, colloquial) 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!

Usage notes

The past tense and past participle is cost in the sense of "this computer cost me £600", but costed in the sense of 'calculated', "the project was costed at $1 million."

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English cost, coust, from costen (“to cost”), from the same source as above.

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:

cost

Wikipedia

cost (countable and uncountable, plural costs)

1. 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.

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

   • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:

     According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.

2. 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.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 3

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.

Noun

cost (plural costs)

1. (obsolete) Manner; way; means; available course; contrivance.(Can we add an example for this sense?)
2. Quality; condition; property; value; worth; a wont or habit; disposition; nature; kind; characteristic.

Derived terms

• at all costs

Related terms

• costen
• costning
• needs-cost

Etymology 4

From Middle English coste, from Old French coste, from Latin costa. Doublet of coast and cuesta.

Noun

cost (plural costs)

1. (obsolete) A rib; a side.
   • 1625 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Staple of Newes. , London: I B for Robert Allot , published 1631, →OCLC, (please specify the page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     betwixt the costs of a ship

2. (heraldry) A cottise.

   Coordinate terms: bendlet, garter, riband

Anagrams

• C.O.T.S., COTS, CSTO, CTOs, OCTS, OSTC, Scot, Scot., TOCs, cots, scot

Catalan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian)

Etymology 1

Deverbal from costar.

Noun

cost m (plural costs or costos)

1. cost

Derived terms

• preu de cost

Related terms

• costar

Etymology 2

From Latin costum.

Noun

cost m (uncountable)

1. costmary (Tanacetum balsamita)

Further reading

• “cost” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• “cost”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “cost” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Manx

Noun

cost m (genitive singular cost, plural costyn)

1. charge (monetary)

Derived terms

• costal

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *kust-, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵews- (“to choose”).

Akin to Old Saxon kostōn (“to try, tempt”), Old High German kostōn (“to taste, test, try by tasting”) (German kosten), Icelandic kosta (“to try, tempt”), Gothic 𐌺𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌿𐍃 (kustus, “test”), Old English cystan (“to spend, get the value of, procure”), Old English cyst (“proof, test, trial; choice”), ċēosan (“to choose”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kost/

Noun

cost m

1. option, choice; possibility
2. condition, manner, way

   þæs costes þe ― on the condition that

Declension

Adjective

cost

1. chosen, choice
2. tried, proven; excellent

Declension

Old French

Etymology

From Latin constare, present infinitive of consto (“I stand firm (at a price)”).

Noun

cost oblique singular, m (oblique plural coz or cotz, nominative singular coz or cotz, nominative plural cost)

1. cost; financial outlay

Related terms

• coster

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Etymology 1

Verb

cost

1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of costa

Etymology 2

Back-formation from costa

Noun

cost n (uncountable)

1. cost

Declension

Welsh

Etymology

Borrowed from English cost.

Pronunciation

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /koːsd/,
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /kɔsd/,
• Rhymes: -ɔsd

Noun

cost m or f (plural costau)

1. cost
2. expense

Derived terms

• costfawr (“costly”, adjective)
• costio (“cost”, verb)
• costus (“costly”, adjective)

Mutation

Further reading

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “cost”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies