as in expensive
commanding a large price
running is one sport that does not require a lot of costly equipment
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Recent Examples of costly
Not all recyclers can or want to handle this costly process.
—
Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 30 Jan. 2026
Illinois also is widely perceived as a costly place to do business from a regulatory and tax standpoint.
—The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 30 Jan. 2026
Contending teams may seek better and healthier/less costly options.
—Kevin Kurz, New York Times, 30 Jan. 2026
This data efficiency is particularly important in robotics, where collecting real-world training data is costly and time-consuming.
—Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 29 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for costly
Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 30 Jan. 2026
Illinois also is widely perceived as a costly place to do business from a regulatory and tax standpoint.
—The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 30 Jan. 2026
Contending teams may seek better and healthier/less costly options.
—Kevin Kurz, New York Times, 30 Jan. 2026
This data efficiency is particularly important in robotics, where collecting real-world training data is costly and time-consuming.
—Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 29 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for costly
Recent Examples of Synonyms for costly
Adjective
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Flights, hotels and cruises are often more expensive around holidays, when demand is high.—
Natalie B. Compton The Washington Post,
Arkansas Online,
1 Feb. 2026
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Exploration calls as pleasure-seeking Venus forms a quincunx to jovial Jupiter, activating your 9th House of Learning with a nudge to adjust expensive plans.—
Tarot.com,
Sun Sentinel,
31 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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The organization will have to hope Michkov learned a valuable lesson and comes to training camp in shape and ready to go from Day 1 next season.—
Kevin Kurz,
New York Times,
30 Jan. 2026
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Once public, OpenAI’s compensation packages may also become less attractive in some ways; new hires would receive stock options rather than pre-IPO equity, and those options may or may not prove valuable depending on the company’s post-IPO performance and stock price trajectory.—
Beatrice Nolan,
Fortune,
30 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Costly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/costly. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.
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