Etymology From Middle English costen, from Old French coster, couster (“to cost”), from Medieval Latin cōstō, from Latin cōnstō (“stand together”).
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.
1 more example
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, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016:
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.
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:
1 more example
though it cost me ten nights' watchings1598–1599 (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, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
3
To require to be borne or suffered; to cause.
to do him wanton rites, which cost them woe1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
LUKE: "That little droid is going to cost me a lot of trouble."1977, Star Wars:
4
To calculate or estimate a price.
I'd cost the repair work at a few thousand.
5
Colloquial To cost (a person) a great deal of money or suffering.
Etymology From Middle English cost, coust, from costen (“to cost”), from the same source as above.
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.
2 more examples
The average cost of a new house is twice as much as it was 20 years ago.
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.
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.
1 more example
We simply do not have the option to return to a lower economic level, at least not a rational option. Peer polity competition drives increased complexity and resource consumption regardless of costs, human or ecological.1988, Joseph Tainter, “Summary and Implications”, in The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 214:
From Middle English cost, from Old English cost (“option, choice, possibility, manner, way, condition”), from Old Norse kostr (“choice, opportunity, chance, condition, state, quality”), from Proto-Germanic *kustuz (“choice, trial”) (or Proto-Germanic *kustiz (“choice, trial”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵéwstus (“to enjoy, taste”). Cognate with Icelandic kostur, German dialectal Kust (“taste, flavour”), Dutch kust (“choice, choosing”), North Frisian kest (“choice, estimation, virtue”), West Frisian kêst (“article of law, statute”), Old English cyst (“free-will, choice, election, the best of anything, the choicest, picked host, moral excellence, virtue, goodness, generosity, munificence”), Latin gustus (“taste”). Related to choose. Doublet of gusto.
1
Obsolete Manner; way; means; available course; contrivance.
2
Quality; condition; property; value; worth; a wont or habit; disposition; nature; kind; characteristic.
betwixt the costs of a ship1625 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Staple of Newes. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot […], published 1631, →OCLC, (please specify the page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):