Dictionary.com
definitions
  • synonyms

expensive

[ik-spen-siv]
adjective
  1. entailing great expense; very high-priced; costly: an expensive party.
Show More

Origin of expensive

First recorded in 1620–30; expense + -ive
Related formsex·pen·sive·ly, adverbex·pen·sive·ness, nounqua·si-ex·pen·sive, adjectivequa·si-ex·pen·sive·ly, adverb
Can be confusedexpansive expensive (see synonym study at the current entry)

Synonyms for expensive

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.

Antonyms for expensive

cheap, low-priced.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for expensiveness

Historical Examples of expensiveness

  • This in some measure banished luxury and expensiveness from these feasts.

    The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates

    Xenophon

  • Tournaments were also interdicted on account of their expensiveness.

  • A diagram at once shows its awkwardness, expensiveness, and undesirability.

    Dramatic Technique

    George Pierce Baker

  • There was therefore no basis for a growth of taste in disregard of expensiveness.

  • Another dubious point is Oswald's argument in the first act as to the expensiveness of marriage as compared with free union.

    Ghosts

    Henrik Ibsen

British Dictionary definitions for expensiveness

expensive

adjective
  1. high-priced; costly; dear
Show More
Derived Formsexpensively, adverbexpensiveness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for expensiveness

expensive

adj.

1620s, "given to profuse expenditure," from expense (n.) + -ive. Meaning "costly" is from 1630s. Earlier was expenseful (c.1600). Expenseless was in use mid-17c.-18c., but there seems nothing now to which it applies, and the dictionaries label it "obsolete."

Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper