expensive
Americanadjective
adjective
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Usage
What does expensive mean? Expensive means something is high priced or costs a lot of money.Expensive is most often applied to items with very high prices, such as luxury cars. But it can also be used to describe things whose price or cost is simply high compared to others.Example: I like it, but it’s just too expensive. Do you have any lower-priced models?
Related Words
Expensive, costly, dear, high-priced apply to something that is high in price. Expensive is applied to whatever entails considerable expense; it suggests a price more than the average person would normally be able to pay or a price paid only for something special: an expensive automobile. Costly implies that the price is a large sum, usually because of the fineness, preciousness, etc., of the object: a costly jewel. Dear is commonly applied in England to something that is selling beyond its usual or just price. In the U.S., high-priced is the usual equivalent.
Other Word Forms
- expensively adverb
- expensiveness noun
- quasi-expensive adjective
- quasi-expensively adverb
Etymology
Origin of expensive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He is 35 and lives in St. Louis, so it’s not like we live in an expensive city.
From MarketWatch
This option, however, can be a very expensive way to release the equity in your home.
From MarketWatch
The deal is expected to see the UK increase the price threshold at which it deems new treatments to be too expensive by 25%, while increasing the overall amount the NHS spends on medicines.
From BBC
All told, it made Minnesota the most expensive team in the entire NFL.
Some drivers — many of whom claim to have fled persecution in India and requested asylum in the U.S. — are sitting on expensive investments they cannot use.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
