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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

costly.

Of high cost; expensive.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈkɒst.li/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Of high cost; expensive.

    a costly activity
    a costly error
Where this word comes from

From Middle English costly, costely, costeley, equivalent to cost + -ly.

noun/ˈkɒst.li/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Short for costly colours.

    abbreviation · alt-of · uncountable
    Costly is a simpler game than cribbage.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English costly, costely, costeley, equivalent to cost + -ly.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.