cost

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See also: Cost

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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

Verb

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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., […], [1933], →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[1]:
      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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
      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], 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:
      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
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  • 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
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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

Noun

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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
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Derived terms
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Etymology 3

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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

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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
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Etymology 4

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

Noun

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cost (plural costs)

  1. (obsolete) A rib; a side.
  2. (heraldry) A cottise.
    Coordinate terms: bendlet, garter, riband

Anagrams

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Catalan

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Deverbal from costar.

Noun

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cost m (plural costs or costos)

  1. cost
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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From Latin costum.

Noun

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cost m (uncountable)

  1. costmary (Tanacetum balsamita)

Further reading

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Manx

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Noun

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cost m (genitive singular cost, plural costyn)

  1. charge (monetary)

Derived terms

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Old English

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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cost m

  1. option, choice; possibility
  2. condition, manner, way
    þæs costes þe ― on the condition that

Declension

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Declension of cost (strong a-stem)
Case Singular Plural
nominative cost costas
accusative cost costas
genitive costes costa
dative coste costum

Adjective

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cost

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

Declension

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Declension of cost — Strong
Singular Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative cost cost cost
Accusative costne coste cost
Genitive costes costre costes
Dative costum costre costum
Instrumental coste costre coste
Plural Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative coste costa, coste cost
Accusative coste costa, coste cost
Genitive costra costra costra
Dative costum costum costum
Instrumental costum costum costum
Declension of cost — Weak
Singular Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative costa coste coste
Accusative costan costan coste
Genitive costan costan costan
Dative costan costan costan
Instrumental costan costan costan
Plural Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative costan costan costan
Accusative costan costan costan
Genitive costra, costena costra, costena costra, costena
Dative costum costum costum
Instrumental costum costum costum

Old French

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Etymology

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

Noun

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

  1. cost; financial outlay
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Romanian

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Verb

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cost

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

Etymology 2

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Back-formation from costa

Noun

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cost n (uncountable)

  1. cost
Declension
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declension of cost (singular only)
singular
n gender indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) cost costul
genitive/dative (unui) cost costului
vocative costule

Welsh

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English cost.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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cost m or f (plural costau)

  1. cost
  2. expense

Derived terms

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Mutation

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Mutated forms of cost
radical soft nasal aspirate
cost gost nghost chost

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Welsh.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Further reading

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  • 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
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