EXPENSIVE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does expensive mean? 

• EXPENSIVE (adjective)
  The adjective EXPENSIVE has 1 sense:

1. high in price or charging high prices

  Familiarity information: EXPENSIVE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXPENSIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

High in price or charging high prices

Context example:

an expensive shop

Similar:

big-ticket; high-ticket (very expensive)

costly; dear; high-priced; pricey; pricy (having a high price)

costly; dearly-won (entailing great loss or sacrifice)

overpriced (too costly for the value)

Also:

valuable (having great material or monetary value especially for use or exchange)

Antonym:

cheap (relatively low in price or charging low prices)

Derivation:

expend (pay out)

expensiveness (the quality of being high-priced)

 Context examples 

Dairy products, eggs and white meat were very expensive in most low-income and lower middle–income countries, while most fruit and vegetables were relatively expensive in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

(High cost of healthy food to blame for malnutrition, SciDev.Net)

It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and thirty pounds.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

All of this will be expensive, Amy.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Buy expensive purchases after March 9—start on March 11, a great day—or buy electronic items on March 29 when Mercury will be working with Uranus to bring unexpected delights.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Visualizing a virus, or other structures that exist on a nanoscale level, typically requires expensive, sophisticated microscopes.

(Smartphone microscope detects nanoparticles and viruses, NIH)

The researchers report that their protein-based models were all either better predictors than models based on traditional risk factors or would constitute more convenient and less expensive alternatives to traditional testing.

(Study highlights potential for ‘liquid health check’ to predict disease risk, University of Cambridge)

They had lunch in the restaurant, where he ordered wine and expensive delicacies and afterward he danced with her and with no one but her, till she was tired.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The grafting technique is also used to protect plants against pests, which decreases the need for expensive pesticides.

(Grafting helps pepper plants deal with drought, SciDev.Net)

The nature of the bill showed that there was a lady in the case, and one who had expensive tastes.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)