Cost Meaning
/kɒst/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.
verbTo cause something to be lost; to cause the expenditure or relinquishment of.
Sentence Examples
This will cost €30.
The cost of life increased drastically.
The cost of borrowing has been excluded from the inflation figures.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The total ____ of the renovation exceeded our initial estimate.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
This will ____ €30.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English costen, from Old French coster, couster (“to cost”), from Medieval Latin cōstō, from Latin cōnstō (“stand together”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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;[…]."
— 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., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016:
"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:
"though it cost me ten nights' watchings"
— 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
"to do him wanton rites, which cost them woe"
— 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
"LUKE: "That little droid is going to cost me a lot of trouble.""
— 1977, Star Wars:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The total ____ of the renovation exceeded our initial estimate.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
This will ____ €30.