cost
Definitions
General English
- noun a price which you have to pay for something
Accounting
- noun the amount of money paid to acquire, produce or maintain something, e.g. the money paid for materials, labour and overheads in the manufacture of a product produced and sold by a business
- verb to cause money to be spent or lost
Construction
- The total expenditure in dollars approved after the completion of a project.
Economics
- noun the value of the inputs (i.e. the amount of money) which are used to produce a good or service
- verb to have a particular monetary value
Information & Library Science
- noun the amount of money needed to buy, do or make something
Origin & History of “cost”
In Latin, something that cost a particular price literally ‘stood at or with’ that price. The Latin verb constāre was formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and stāre ‘stand’ (a relative of English stand). In vulgar Latin this became *costāre, which passed into English via Old French coster (the derived noun arrived first, the verb a couple of decades later). The adjective costly is a 14th century formation.
