King James Bible Dictionary

COST, noun [See the Verb.]

1. The price, value or equivalent of a thing purchased; the amount in value paid, charge or engaged to be paid for any thing bought or taken in barter. The word is equally applicable to the price in money or commodities; as the cost of a suit of clothes; the cost of a house or farm.

2. Expense; amount in value expended or to be expended; charge; that which is given or to be given for another thing.

I will not offer burnt offerings without cost 1 Chronicles 21:24.

Have we eaten at all at the kings cost? 2 Samuel 19:42.

The cost of maintaining armies is immense and often ruinous.

3. In law, the sum fixed by law or allowed by the court for charges of a suit awarded against the party losing, in favor of the party prevailing, etc. The jury find that the plaintiff recover of the defendant ten dollars with costs of suit or with his cost

4. Loss or expense of any kind; detriment; pain; suffering. The vicious man indulges his propensities at a great cost

5. Sumptuousness; great expense.

COST, verb transitive [The noun cost coincides in most of these languages with coast and Latin Costa, a rib, the exterior part. The primary sense of the verb is, to throw or send out, to cast, as we say, to lay out. I call this a transitive verb. In the phrase, a hat costs six dollars, the sense is, it expends, lays out, or causes to be laid out six dollars.]

1. To require to be given or expend in barter or purchase; to be bought for; as, this book cost a dollar; the army and navy cost four millions a year.

2. To require to be laid out, given, bestowed or employed; as, Johnsons Dictionary cost him seven years labor.

3. To require to be borne or suffered. Our sins cost us many pains. A sense of ingratitude to his maker costs the penitent sinner many pangs and sorrows.

COSTAL, adjective [Latin , a side or rib. A coast or side is the extreme part, a limit, from extending, throwing or shooting out, Eng. to cast.] Pertaining to the side of the body or the ribs; as costal nerves.

COSTARD, noun

1. A head. [Not used.]

2. An apple, round and bulky, like the head.

COSTARD-MONGER, noun An apple-seller.

COSTER-MONGER, noun An apple seller.

COSTIVE, adjective [L, to cram, to stuff.]

1. Literally, crowded, stuffed, as the intestines; hence, bound in body; retaining fecal matter in the bowels, in a hard and dry state; having the excrements obstructed, or the motion of the bowels too slow.

2. Dry and hard; as costive clay. [Not used.]

COSTIVENESS, noun A preternatural detention of the fecal matter of the bowels, with hardness and dryness; an obstruction or preternatural slowness of evacuations from the bowels.

COSTLESS, adjective Costing nothing.

COSTLINESS, noun [See Costly.] Expensiveness; great cost, or expense; sumptuousness. Revelation 18:19.

COSTLY, adjective [from cost.] Of a high price; sumptuous; expensive; purchased at a great expense; as a costly habit; costly furniture.

Mary took a pound of spikenard, very costly John 12:3.

COSTMARY, noun [Gr. Latin , an aromatic plant, and Maria.] A species of tansy, or Tanacetum; alecost.

COSTREL, noun A bottle. [Not in use.]

COSTUME, noun

1. In painting, a rule or precept by which an artist is enjoined to make every person and thing sustain its proper character, observing the scene of action, the country or place, and making the habits, arms, manners, and proportions correspond. Hence, the observance of this rule in execution.

2. An established mode of dress.