expensive

English

Alternative forms

• expencive (archaic)

Etymology

From Latin expēnsīvus, from expendō; synchronically analyzable as expense +‎ -ive. In the sense of "high-priced" has largely displaced dear.

Pronunciation

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪkˈspɛnsɪv/, /ɛkˈspɛnsɪv/

• Audio (UK)

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• Audio (US)

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• Audio

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Adjective

expensive (comparative more expensive, superlative most expensive)

1. (obsolete) Given to expending a lot of money; profligate, lavish.
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, I.4:

     [H]e had been very expensive when abroad; and contracted a large debt […].

   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, I.25:

     [T]hus naturally generous and expensive, he squandered away his money, and made a most splendid appearance upon the receipt of his quarterly appointment […] .

2. Having a high price or cost.
   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎^[1]:

     If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the ever more expensive and then universally known killing hazards of gasoline cars: […] .

   • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:

     […] a new study of how Starbucks has largely avoided paying tax in Britain […] shows that current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: […]. […] the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property.

3. (computing) Taking a lot of system time or resources.

   an unnecessarily expensive choice of algorithm

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:expensive

Antonyms

• cheap
• inexpensive
• low-priced

Derived terms

• expensive drunk
• expensively
• expensiveness

Related terms

• expend
• expense

Translations

having a high price or cost

• Afrikaans: duur (af)
• Albanian: shtrenjtë (sq), kushtueshëm (sq)
• Amharic: ዉድ (wud)
• Arabic: غَالٍ‎ (ḡālin) (indefinite), الْغَالِي‎ (al-ḡālī) (definite)

  Egyptian Arabic: غالي‎ (ḡāli)

• Armenian: թանկ (hy) (tʿank)
• Assamese: দামী (dami), মহঙা (mohoṅa)
• Asturian: caru
• Avar: хирияб (χirijab)
• Azerbaijani: bahalı (az), baha (az)
• Bashkir: ҡиммәт (qimmät), ҡыйбат (qïybat)
• Belarusian: дарагі́ (darahí)
• Bengali: ব্যয়বহুল (bjôẏôbhul)
• Bulgarian: скъп (bg) (skǎp)
• Burmese: ရှား (my) (hra:), ဈေးကြီး (my) (jhe:kri:), ကြေးကြီး (my) (kre:kri:), အဖိုးကြီး (my) (a.hpui:kri:)
• Catalan: car (ca)
• Cebuano: mahal
• Chamicuro: kajso'no tsakala
• Chechen: деза (deza)
• Chichewa: yodula
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 貴, 贵 (gwai³)

  Dungan: гуй (guy)

  Mandarin: 貴 (zh), 贵 (zh) (guì), 昂貴 (zh), 昂贵 (zh) (ángguì)

  Min Nan: 貴 (zh-min-nan), 贵 (kùi)

• Crimean Tatar: paalı
• Czech: drahý (cs), nákladný (cs)
• Danish: dyr (da)
• Dutch: duur (nl)
• Esperanto: multekosta (eo), altepreza
• Estonian: kallis (et)
• Faroese: dýrur
• Finnish: kallis (fi)
• French: cher (fr), coûteux (fr)
• Friulian: cjâr, čhâr
• Galician: caro (gl)
• Georgian: ძვირი (ʒviri), ძვირადღირებული (ʒviradɣirebuli)
• German: teuer (de)
• Gothic: 𐌲𐌰𐌻𐌰𐌿𐍆𐍃 (galaufs)
• Greek: ακριβός (el) (akrivós)

  Ancient: πολυτελής (polutelḗs)

• Gujarati: મોંઘું (moṅghũ)
• Hebrew: יָקָר‎ (he) (yaqar)
• Hindi: महँगा (hi) (mahaṅgā), बहुमूल्य (hi) (bahumūlya), क़ीमती (qīmtī)
• Hungarian: drága (hu)
• Icelandic: dýr (is)
• Ido: chera (io)
• Indonesian: mahal (id)

  Sundanese: awis (su)

• Ingush: деза (deza)
• Interlingua: car
• Irish: costasach, daor, costasúil, mórluachach
• Italian: caro (it), costoso (it), dispendioso (it)
• Japanese: 高い (ja) (たかい, takai)
• Kazakh: қымбат (kk) (qımbat)
• Khmer: ថ្លៃ (km) (thlay)
• Korean: 비싸다 (ko) (bissada) (predicative), 비싼 (ko) (bissan) (attributive)
• Krio: dia
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: گران‎ (ku) (gran)

• Kyrgyz: кымбат (ky) (qımbat)
• Lao: ແພງ (phǣng)
• Latin: pretiōsus, cārus (la), impensus
• Latvian: dārgs
• Lithuanian: brangus (lt)
• Luxembourgish: deier
• Lü: ᦶᦗᧂ (paeng)

• Macedonian: скап (skap)
• Malay: mahal
• Malayalam: ചെലവേറിയ (celavēṟiya)
• Maltese: għaljin
• Mansaka: maal
• Manx: ard-leaghoil
• Marathi: महाग (mahāg)
• Mongolian: үнэтэй (mn) (ünetei)
• Navajo: ílį́įnii
• Nepali: महँगो (mahãgo), बहुमुल्य (ne) (bahumulya)
• Ngazidja Comorian: ghali, hali
• Norwegian: dyr (no), kostbar
• Occitan: car (oc)
• Old Church Slavonic:

  Cyrillic: драгъ (dragŭ)

• Old English: dīere
• Pashto: ګران‎ (grân), قيمته‎ (qimáta)
• Persian: گران‎ (fa) (gerân)
• Plautdietsch: dia
• Polish: drogi (pl)
• Portuguese: caro (pt)
• Punjabi: ਮਹਿੰਗਾ (mahiṅgā)
• Romanian: scump (ro), costisitor (ro)
• Russian: дорого́й (ru) (dorogój)
• Rusyn: дорогы́й (dorohŷ́j)
• Sanskrit: बहुमूल्य (sa) (bahumūlya), महार्घ (sa) (mahārgha)
• Scottish Gaelic: cosgail, daor
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ску̑п

  Roman: skȕp (sh)

• Shan: please add this translation if you can
• Sindhi: महांगो
• Sinhalese: ගණං (gaṇaṁ)
• Slovak: drahý
• Slovene: drag (sl)
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: drogi

  Upper Sorbian: drohi

• Southern Amami-Oshima: たはさん (tahasan)
• Spanish: caro (es), costoso (es), dispendioso (es)
• Swahili: gali (sw)
• Swedish: dyr (sv), kostsam (sv)
• Tagalog: mahal (tl)
• Tajik: гарон (tg) (garon), қимат (qimat)
• Tamil: விலையுயர்ந்த (vilaiyuyarnta)
• Tatar: кыйбат (qıybat)
• Tausug: mahalga
• Telugu: ఖరీదైన (te) (kharīdaina)
• Thai: แพง (th) (pɛɛng)
• Tibetan: གྲོན་ཆེ (gron che), གྲོན་ཆེན (gron chen), གུན་པོ (gun po), གུས་པོ (gus po)
• Tigrinya: ክቡር (kəbur)
• Turkish: pahalı (tr)
• Turkmen: gymmat
• Ukrainian: дороги́й (dorohýj), кошто́вний (uk) (koštóvnyj)
• Urdu: مہنگا‎ (mahãṅgā), قیمتی‎ (qīmatī)
• Uyghur: قىممەت‎ (qimmet)
• Uzbek: qimmat (uz)
• Venetian: caro
• Vietnamese: đắt (vi), đắt tiền, mắc (vi)
• Volapük: jerik (vo)
• Walloon: tchir (wa)
• Welsh: drud (cy)
• White Hmong: kim, tsis pheejyig
• Yiddish: טייַער‎ (tayer)
• Zhuang: bengz
• Zulu: -dula, -biza

See also

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