expensive

/ɛkˈspɛnsɪv/

/ɛkˈspɛnsɪv/

The adjective expensive means high in price, like the expensive basketball sneakers you had to work all summer to save up enough money to buy.

Expensive comes from the 1620s, when it meant "given to profuse expenditure." Back then, it was the people doing the buying who got called "expensive." Now it's the costly things they buy or take part in. For example, sailing is an expensive hobby. If someone tells you, "I have expensive taste," it means that person likes things that cost a lot of money, whether they are purchased or just admired from the shop window.

Definitions of expensive

1. adjective

   high in price or charging high prices
   “expensive clothes”

   “an expensive shop”

   synonyms:

   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

   valuable

   having great material or monetary value especially for use or exchange

   antonyms:

   cheap

   relatively low in price or charging low prices

   bargain-priced, cut-price, cut-rate

   costing less than standard price

   catchpenny

   designed to sell quickly without concern for quality

   dirt cheap

   very cheap

   low-budget

   made on or suited to a limited budget

   affordable, low-cost, low-priced

   that you have the financial means for

   nickel-and-dime

   low-paying

   sixpenny, threepenny, tuppeny, two-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny

   of trifling worth