Costful

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Expensive; sumptuous. archaic
  2. 2
    Indicative of expenditure or loss; costly.

    "The fight against improved means, methods and materials in the construction industry, in shipping by rail or by sea, in the printing industry and most everywhere has been hugely costful to American consumers and involves a great waste of resources."

Example

More examples

"The fight against improved means, methods and materials in the construction industry, in shipping by rail or by sea, in the printing industry and most everywhere has been hugely costful to American consumers and involves a great waste of resources."

Etymology

From Middle English costful, equivalent to cost + -ful. Perhaps influenced by Middle English costful (“fraught with hardship”), a different word.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.