cost

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒst/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔst/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑst/

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• Rhymes: -ɒst

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”).

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

1. 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 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.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     though it cost me ten nights' watchings

3. To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     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.

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."

• cost an arm and a leg
• cost a pretty penny
• cost the earth
• how much does it cost

From Middle English cost, coust, from costen (“to cost”), see below.

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.

   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.

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.

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.

• at all costs
• needs-cost

• costen
• costning

From Old French coste, from Latin costa.

cost (plural costs)

1. (obsolete) A rib; a side.
   • Ben Jonson

     betwixt the costs of a ship

2. (heraldry) A cottise.

• C.O.T.S., COTS, CSTO, CTOs, OSTC, Scot, Scot., TOCs, cots, scot

cost m (plural costs or costos)

1. cost

• costar

cost m (genitive singular cost, plural costyn)

1. charge (monetary)

• costal

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”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkost/

cost m

1. option, choice; possibility
2. condition, manner, way

   þæs costes þe (on the condition that)

cost

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

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

1. cost; financial outlay

• coster

Borrowed from English cost.

cost m or f (plural costau)

1. cost
2. expense