Oncost

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Additional costs; extra expenses.
  2. 2
    Overhead (expense)
  3. 3
    The cost of upkeep, making and maintaining shafts, roads, pumping, etc.
  4. 4
    The indirect expenditure incurred for the purpose of increasing the productive power of organised labour. Scotland, UK, dialectal

Etymology

From on- + cost, or from Middle English uncost (“additional expense”), from Middle Dutch oncost (“expenses, overhead”) (Modern Dutch onkost), equivalent to un- + cost. Cognate with German Unkost (“expenses”).

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