Definition of "cost"

cost¹

/ˈkɒst/

verb
third-person singular simple present costs, present participle costing, simple past and past participle cost or costed
1. (transitive, ditransitive) To incur a charge of; to require payment of a (specified) price.
  Quotations
  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; […].
  1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], page 0016
2. (transitive, ditransitive) To cause something to be lost; to cause the expenditure or relinquishment of.
  Quotations
  the packaging of home-delivered products now accounts for 30% of the solid rubbish the US generates annually, and the cardboard alone costs 1bn trees.
  2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎
  though it cost me ten nights' watchings
  1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]
3. To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
  Quotations
  to do him wanton rites, which cost them woe
  1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,
  LUKE: "That little droid is going to cost me a lot of trouble."
  1977, Star Wars
4. To calculate or estimate a price.
5. (transitive, colloquial) To cost (a person) a great deal of money or suffering.

cost²

/ˈkɒst/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural costs
1. Amount of money, time, etc. that is required or used.
  Quotations
  According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.
  2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55
2. A negative consequence or loss that occurs or is required to occur.

cost³

/ˈkɒst/

noun
plural costs
1. (obsolete) Manner; way; means; available course; contrivance.
2. Quality; condition; property; value; worth; a wont or habit; disposition; nature; kind; characteristic.

cost⁴

/ˈkɒst/

noun
plural costs
1. (obsolete) A rib; a side.
  Quotations
  betwixt the costs of a ship
  1625 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Staple of Newes. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot […], published 1631, (please specify the page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)
2. (heraldry) A cottise.

Definition of "cost"

cost1

verb

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cost2

noun

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cost3

noun

cost4

noun

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cost¹

cost²

cost³

cost⁴