# cost
## English
### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈkɒst/
** Audio (UK):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /ˈkɔst/
* (cot–caught merger) IPA: /ˈkɑst/
** Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɒst, -ɔːst

### Etymology 1

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

#### Verb

cost (third-person singular simple present costs, present participle costing, simple past and past participle cost or costed)
* (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; […].
* (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: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
* 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."
* To calculate or estimate a price.
    I'd cost the repair work at a few thousand.
* (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

* 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

* cost an arm and a leg
* cost a pretty penny
* cost the earth
* cost up
* how much does it cost
* miscost
* recost

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

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

#### Noun

cost (countable and uncountable, plural costs)
* 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.
* 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

* accounting cost
* actual cost
* after-cost
* appraisal cost
* at any cost
* at the cost of
* business cost
* carbon cost
* closing cost
* come at a cost
* contingency cost
* cost-benefit analysis
* cost-book
* cost-conscious
* cost dear
* cost-effectiveness
* cost mark
* cost object
* cost of goods sold
* cost oil
* cost plus
* cost-push inflation
* direct cost
* dollar-cost averaging
* dollar cost averaging
* fixed cost
* flotation cost
* flyaway cost
* historical cost
* indirect cost
* landed cost
* low cost carrier
* marginal cost
* marginal cost of capital
* menu cost
* negative cost
* operating cost
* opportunity cost
* prime cost
* private cost
* should-cost
* sunk cost
* ultra low cost carrier
* unexpired cost
* unit cost
* variable cost
* weighted-average cost of capital
* wellhead cost

##### Derived terms

* aftercost
* costable
* cost base
* cost-benefit
* cost-cutting, cost cutting
* cost-effective
* cost-efficient
* cost estimate
* costful
* cost function
* costless
* costly
* cost-prohibitive
* cost-push
* cost-saving, cost saving
* costware
* costworthy
* high-cost
* isocost
* low-cost
* miscost
* oncost
* overcost
* recost
* transaction cost

##### Related terms

* at cost
* cost and freight
* cost avoidance
* cost benefit analysis
* cost center
* cost centre
* cost containment
* cost control
* cost cutting
* cost objective
* cost of business
* cost of doing business
* cost of living
* cost of money
* cost of sales
* cost overrun
* cost per available seat mile
* cost price
* design to cost

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. 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. Doublet of gusto.

#### Noun

cost (plural costs)
* (obsolete) Manner; way; means; available course; contrivance.(Can we add an example for this sense?)
* Quality; condition; property; value; worth; a wont or habit; disposition; nature; kind; characteristic.

##### Derived terms

* at all costs

##### Related terms

* costen
* costning
* needs-cost

### Etymology 4

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

#### Noun

cost (plural costs)
* (obsolete) A rib; a side.
** 1625 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Staple of Newes. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot […], published 1631, →OCLC, (please specify the page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):betwixt the costs of a ship
* (heraldry) A cottise.
    Coordinate terms: bendlet, garter, riband

### Anagrams

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

## Catalan
### Pronunciation

* IPA: (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈkɔst]

### Etymology 1

Deverbal from costar.

#### Noun

cost m (plural costs or costos)
* cost

##### Derived terms

* preu de cost

##### Related terms

* costar

### Etymology 2

From Latin costum.

#### Noun

cost m (uncountable)
* costmary (Tanacetum balsamita)

### Further reading

* “cost” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
* “cost”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
* “cost” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

## Manx
### Noun

cost m (genitive singular cost, plural costyn)
* charge (monetary)

#### Derived terms

* costal

## 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: /kost/

### Noun

cost m
* option, choice; possibility
* condition, manner, way
    þæs costes þe ― on the condition that

#### Declension

Strong a-stem:

### Adjective

cost
* chosen, choice
* tried, proven; excellent

#### Declension
## Old French
### Etymology

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

### Noun

cost oblique singular, m (oblique plural coz or cotz, nominative singular coz or cotz, nominative plural cost)
* cost; financial outlay

#### Related terms

* coster

## Romanian
### Pronunciation

* IPA: [kost]

### Etymology 1
#### Verb

cost
* first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of costa

### Etymology 2

Back-formation from costa

#### Noun

cost n (uncountable)
* cost

##### Declension
## Welsh
### Etymology

Borrowed from English cost.

### Pronunciation

* (North Wales) IPA: /koːsd/, [kʰoːst]
* (South Wales) IPA: /kɔsd/, [kʰɔst]
* Rhymes: -ɔsd

### Noun

cost m or f (plural costau)
* cost
* expense

#### Derived terms

* costfawr (“costly”, adjective)
* costio (“cost”, verb)
* costus (“costly”, adjective)

### Mutation

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

### Further reading

* 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