• (RP) IPA: /ˈkɒst/
• (America) IPA: /ˈkɔst/
• (cot-caught, Canada) IPA: /ˈkɑst/

cost (costs, present participle costing; past and past participle cost)

1. 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 7780546 ↗; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860 ↗, 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; […].

2. 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.

   • RQ
3. To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 1”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     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."

4. To calculate or estimate a price.

   I'd cost the repair work at a few thousand.

• French: coûter, couter
• German: kosten
• Italian: costare
• Portuguese: custar
• Russian: сто́ить
• Spanish: costar

• French: coûter, couter

cost

1. 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.

2. 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.

• French: coût, frais
• German: Kosten
• Italian: costo, spesa
• Portuguese: custo
• Russian: расхо́ды
• Spanish: costa, gasto, costo

• French: coût
• German: Verlust, Ausgaben
• Portuguese: custo
• Russian: изде́ржки
• Spanish: costo

cost (plural costs)

1. (obsolete) Manner; way; means; available course; contrivance.

   • This word "graved image" betokenneth, needs cost,.. a feigned graved image.

2. Quality; condition; property; value; worth; a wont or habit; disposition; nature; kind; characteristic.

• costen
• costning

cost (plural costs)

1. (obsolete) A rib; a side.
   • 1625, Ben Jonson, The Staple of News

     betwixt the costs of a ship

2. (heraldry) A cottise.

1. Surname