expensive
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
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
Etymology
Origin of expensive
Explanation
The adjective expensive means high in price, like the expensive basketball sneakers you had to work all summer to save up enough money to buy. Expensive comes from the 1620s, when it meant "given to profuse expenditure." Back then, it was the people doing the buying who got called "expensive." Now it's the costly things they buy or take part in. For example, sailing is an expensive hobby. If someone tells you, "I have expensive taste," it means that person likes things that cost a lot of money, whether they are purchased or just admired from the shop window.
Vocabulary lists containing expensive
List 1
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Purple Hibiscus
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"The Evolution of a Great Idea"
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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.
With 2-milliliter samples running up to $12, “collecting new scents gets expensive fast,” Bostrous says.
From Los Angeles Times • May 19, 2026
The painting, which came from the private collection of media magnate SI Newhouse, is also now the fourth most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, according to ARTnews.
From BBC • May 19, 2026
A weaker yen makes the cost of imports more expensive in Japan, which relies on foreign countries for much of its energy and food needs.
From Barron's • May 19, 2026
Then there’s Main Street’s worries about increasingly expensive power bills.
From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026
On some occasions, the team would stop at a fairly expensive restaurant and he’d announce to everyone, “Order anything on the menu you want, but no alcohol.”
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
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.
