cost

See also: Cost

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English costen, from Old French coster, couster (“to cost”), from Medieval Latin costare, from Latin constare (“stand together, stand at, cost”), from com- + stare (“stand”).

Verb

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

  1. To incur a charge; to require payment of a 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 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, [1933], OCLC 2666860, 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. 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.
  3. To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
    • John Milton (1608-1674)
      to do him wanton rites, which cost them woe
    • Star Wars (1977)
      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.
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”), see below.

Noun

cost (plural costs)

  1. Amount of money, time, etc. that is required or used.
    • 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.
    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.
  2. A negative consequence or loss that occurs or is required to occur.
    There were many costs to the development project, the least of all was the financial aspect.
    If you train all the time, there will be a few costs such as a lack of free time.
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#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.

Noun

cost (plural costs)

  1. (obsolete) Manner; way; means; available course; contrivance.
    • Pecock
      This word "graved image" betokenneth, needs cost,.. a feigned graved image.
  2. Quality; condition; property; value; worth; a wont or habit; disposition; nature; kind; characteristic.
Derived terms

Etymology 4

From Old French coste from Latin costa.

Noun

cost (plural costs)

  1. (obsolete) A rib; a side.
    • Ben Jonson
      betwixt the costs of a ship
  2. (heraldry) A cottise.

Anagrams

Catalan

Noun

cost m (plural costs or costos)

  1. cost

Manx

Noun

cost m (genitive singular cost, plural costyn)

  1. charge (monetary)

Derived terms

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): /ˈkost/

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

Noun

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

  1. cost; financial outlay

Welsh

Etymology

Borrowed from English cost.

Noun

cost m, f (plural costau)

  1. cost
  2. expense

Mutation

Welsh mutation
radicalsoftnasalaspirate
cost gost nghost chost
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
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