EXPENSIVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Expensive

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/ɪkspˈɛnsɪv/ Listen

adjective

Expensive adj.

Occasioning expense; calling for liberal outlay; costly; dear; liberal; as, expensive dress; an expensive house or family. "War is expensive, and peace desirable."

Free in expending; very liberal; especially, in a bad sense: extravagant; lavish. (R.) "An active, expensive, indefatigable goodness." "The idle and expensive are dangerous."

Synonyms: Costly; dear; high-priced; lavish; extravagant.

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Etymology of 'Expensive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Expensive" Quotes from Famous Books

... description. Buck-wheat is used for this purpose, as also to make cakes, as in America. What we call manna croup is also used in a variety of ways. A favourite fish among the higher classes is the sterlet, a sort of sturgeon; soup is made of it, but it is very expensive. ...

— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... don't know why we are fighting. Hundreds of thousands of them have never read a newspaper in their lives. I doubt whether they would understand one if they tried, I doubt whether all could read one in the literal sense of the word. We have had—we have still—the most expensive and rottenest system of primary education in the world, the worst that squabbling sectarians can devise. Arab children squatting round the courtyard of a Mosque and swaying backwards and forwards as they get ...

— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... century. How often is the market value and food value of a thousand pounds of nut meats per acre equalled by crops from annual plants which would require from 100 to 200 plowings and harrowings during a hundred years of continuous cultivation leaving out the question of expensive fertilizers and labor. Large populations live upon dates, olives and figs. For trouble they have to look ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... and Mrs. Lamb sighed audibly, for during the year he had spent in her family, Brother Timon had so faithfully carried out his idea of "being, not doing," that she had found his "divine growth" both an expensive and unsatisfactory process. ...

— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... provide the main livelihood for more than 60% of the population. Agriculture consists largely of subsistence farming and animal husbandry. Rugged mountains dominate the terrain and make the building of roads and other infrastructure difficult and expensive. The economy is closely aligned with India's through strong trade and monetary links and dependence on India's financial assistance. The industrial sector is technologically backward, with most production of the cottage industry type. Most development projects, ...

— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

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