cost Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the total spent for goods or services including money and time and labor
  2. noun the property of having material worth (often indicated by the amount of money something would bring if sold)
    price; monetary value.
    • the fluctuating monetary value of gold and silver
    • he puts a high price on his services
    • he couldn't calculate the cost of the collection
  3. noun value measured by what must be given or done or undergone to obtain something
    price; toll.
    • the cost in human life was enormous
    • the price of success is hard work
    • what price glory?
  4. verb be priced at
    be.
    • These shoes cost $100
  5. verb require to lose, suffer, or sacrifice
    • This mistake cost him his job

WordNet

Cost noun
Etymology
L. costa rib. See Coast.
Definitions
  1. A rib; a side; a region or coast. Obs. Piers Plowman.
    Betwixt the costs of a ship. B. Jonson.
  2. (Her.) See Cottise.
Cost transitive verb
Etymology
OF. coster, couster, F. coter, fr. L. constare to stand at, to cost; con- + stare to stand. See Stand, and cf. Constant.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Cost; present participle & verbal noun Costing
Definitions
  1. To require to be given, expended, or laid out therefor, as in barter, purchase, acquisition, etc.; to cause the cost, expenditure, relinquishment, or loss of; as, the ticket cost a dollar; the effort cost his life.
    A d'amond gone, cost me two thousand ducats. Shak.
    Though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Shak.
  2. To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
    To do him wanton rites, whichcost them woe. Milton.
Cost noun
Etymology
OF. cost, F. cot. See Cost, v. t.
Definitions
  1. The amount paid, charged, or engaged to be paid, for anything bought or taken in barter; charge; expense; hence, whatever, as labor, self-denial, suffering, etc., is requisite to secure benefitt.
    One day shall crown the alliance on 't so please you, Here at my house, and at my proper cost. Shak.
    At less cost of life than is often expended in a skirmish, [Charles V.] saved Europe from invasion. Prescott.
  2. Loss of any kind; detriment; pain; suffering.
    I know thy trains, Though dearly to my cost, thy gins and toils. Milton.
  3. pl. (Law) Expenses incurred in litigation. ✍ Costs in actions or suits are either between attorney and client, being what are payable in every case to the attorney or counsel by his client whether he ultimately succeed or not, or between party and party, being those which the law gives, or the court in its discretion decrees, to the prevailing, against the losing, party. Thackeray.

Webster 1913