cost
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The amount of money needed to buy, do or make something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahstIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɑst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The total spent for goods or services including money and time and labor
Amount of money, time, etc. that is required or used.
A negative consequence or loss that occurs or is required to occur.
Quality; condition; property; value; worth; a wont or habit; disposition; nature; kind; characteristic.
verb
transitiveditransitive
To incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.
transitiveditransitive
To cause something to be lost; to cause the expenditure or relinquishment of.
To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
To calculate or estimate a price.
transitivecolloquial
To cost (a person) a great deal of money or suffering.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The total spent for goods or services including money and time and labor
Used this way, cost is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use cost
- “This mistake cost him his job.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Pecuniary reimbursement to the winning party for the expenses of litigation.
Cost accounting.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The opportunity cost of the funds employed as the result of an investment decision.
Average cost of basic necessities of life (as food and shelter and clothing).
An allowance for changes in the consumer price index.
A benefit that goes to anyone whose money receipts increase automatically as prices rise.
An index of the cost of all goods and services to a typical consumer.
Excess of cost over budget.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- compensationnoun
- pricenoun
- profitnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to incur a charge of
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.