Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Requiring a large expenditure; costly.
  • adjective Marked by high prices.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Costly; requiring or entailing much expense: as, an expensive dress or equipage; an expensive family; expensive tastes or habits.
  • Free in expending; liberal; extravagant; lavish.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Occasioning expense; calling for liberal outlay; costly; dear; liberal
  • adjective rare Free in expending; very liberal; especially, in a bad sense: extravagant; lavish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective having a high price or cost
  • adjective computing taking a lot of system time or resources

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective high in price or charging high prices

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin expensivus, from expendere, compare expense

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Examples

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  • Why in my list? See organic.

    November 7, 2008