WordNet
n. the opportunity cost of the funds employed as the result of an investment decision; the rate of return that a business could earn if it chose another investment with equivalent risk [syn: cost of capital]
Wikipedia
Capital costs are fixed, one-time expenses incurred on the purchase of land, buildings, construction, and equipment used in the production of goods or in the rendering of services. Put simply, it is the total cost needed to bring a project to a commercially operable status. Whether a particular cost is capital or not depend on many factors such as accounting, tax laws, and materiality.
Usage examples of "capital cost".
Because of this, and for use in areas where traffic density did not justify the capital cost of electrification, in 1920-22 a new series of locomotives using turbocompound-electric power were brought into service.
It was labor-intensive, but viable because it spared the capital cost of robotization.
With his prize money in addition to offset both the training fees and the capital cost of buying the horses in the first place, I guessed that he had come out comfortably ahead, and it was in the business sense, I supposed, that owning horses had chiefly pleased him.