expensive

• expencive (archaic)

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

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

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

expensive (comparative more expensive, superlative most expensive)

1. (obsolete) Given to expending a lot of money; profligate, lavish.
   • 1748, [Samuel Richardson], chapter 4, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume I, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; […], OCLC 13631815:

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

   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 25, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume I, London: Harrison and Co., […], published 1781, OCLC 316121541:

     [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:

     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

• See Thesaurus:expensive

• cheap
• inexpensive
• low-priced

• expensive drunk
• expensively
• expensiveness
• it's too expensive

• expend
• expense

• $$