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Webster 1913 Edition


Expensive

Ex-pen′sive

,
Adj.
1.
Occasioning expense; calling for liberal outlay; costly; dear; liberal;
as,
expensive
dress; an
expensive
house or family.
War is
expensive
, and peace desirable.
Burke.
2.
Free in expending; very liberal; especially, in a bad sense: extravagant; lavish.
[R.]
An active,
expensive
, indefatigable goodness.
Sprat.
Ex-pen′sive-ly
,
adv.
Ex-pen′sive-ness
,
Noun.

Webster 1828 Edition


Expensive

EXPENS'IVE

,
Adj.
Costly; requiring much expense; as an expensive dress or equipment; an expensive family. Vices are usually more expensive than virtues.
1.
Given to expense; free in the use of money; extravagant; lavish; applied to persons. Of men, some are frugal and industrious; others, idle land expensive.
2.
Liberal; generous in the distribution of property.
This requires an active, expensive, indefatigable goodness.

Definition 2024


expensive

expensive

English

Alternative forms

Adjective

expensive (comparative more expensive, superlative most expensive)

  1. Having a high price or cost.
    • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion:
      If successful, Edison and Fordin 1914would move society away from the ever more expensive and then universally known killing hazards of gasoline cars: [].
    • 2013 June 22, T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
      [] a new study of how Starbucks has largely avoided paying tax in Britain [] shows that current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate [] “stateless income”: []. [] the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property.
  2. (computing) Taking a lot of system time or resources.
    an unnecessarily expensive choice of algorithm

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