Cost, n.
Etymology: [OF. cost, F. co. See Cost, v. t. ]
1. The amount paid, charged, or engaged to be paid, for anything bought or taken in barter; charge; expense; hence, whatever, as labor, self-denial, suffering, etc., is requisite to secure benefitt. One day shall crown the alliance on 't so please you, Here at my house, and at my proper cost. Shak. At less cost of life than is often expended in a skirmish, [Charles V.] saved Europe from invasion. Prescott.
2. Loss of any kind; detriment; pain; suffering. I know thy trains, Though dearly to my cost, thy gins and toils. Milton.
3. pl. (Law)
Expenses incurred in litigation.
1 more senses
Note: Costs in actions or suits are either between attorney and client, being what are payable in every case to the attorney or counsel by his client whether he ultimately succeed or not, or between party and party, being those which the law gives, or the court in its discretion decrees, to the prevailing, against the losing, party. Bill of costs. See under Bill. -- Cost free, without outlay or expense. "Her duties being to talk French, and her privileges to live cost free and to gather scraps of knowledge." Thackeray.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
Cost (kst; 115), n.
1. A rib; a side; a region or coast. [Obs.] Piers Plowman. Betwixt the costs of a ship. B. Jonson.
2. (Her.)
See Cottise.
Cost (kst; 115), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cost; p. pr. & vb. n. Costing.]
1. To require to be given, expended, or laid out therefor, as in barter, purchase, acquisition, etc.; to cause the cost, expenditure, relinquishment, or loss of; as, the ticket cost a dollar; the effort cost his life. A d'amond gone, cost me two thousand ducats. Shak. Though it cost me ten nights' watchings. Shak.
2. To require to be borne or suffered; to cause. To do him wanton rites, whichcost them woe. Milton. To cost dear, to require or occasion a large outlay of money, or much labor, self-denial, suffering, etc.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for cost; he lists it under address, expense, price.
Where he writes about it:
The cost of a thing is whatever one surrenders or gives up for it, intentionally or unintentionally, or even unconsciously; expense is what is laid out by calculation or intention. — from expense
We say, "he won his fame at the cost of his life;" "I know it to my cost;" we speak of a joke at another's expense; at another's cost would seem to make it a more serious matter. — from expense
There is a tendency to use cost of what we pay for a possession, expense of what we pay for a service; we speak of the cost of goods, the expense of making up. — from expense
The cost of a thing is all that has been expended upon it, whether in discovery, production, refinement, decoration, transportation, or otherwise, to bring it to its present condition in the hands of its present possessor; the price of a thing is what the seller asks for it. — from price
In regular business, as a rule, the seller's price on his wares must be more than their cost to him; when goods are sold, the price the buyer has paid becomes their cost to himself. — from price
In exceptional cases, when goods are sold at cost, the seller's price is made the same as the cost of the goods to him, the cost to the seller and the cost to the buyer becoming then identical. — from price