Wiktionary
n. (context accounting English) An excess of actual cost over budget.
WordNet
n. excess of cost over budget; "the cost overrun necessitated an additional allocation of funds in the budget"
Wikipedia
A cost overrun, also known as a cost increase or budget overrun, involves unexpected costs incurred in excess of budgeted amounts due to an underestimation of the actual cost during budgeting. Cost overrun should be distinguished from cost escalation, which is used to express an anticipated growth in a budgeted cost due to factors such as inflation.
Cost overrun is common in infrastructure, building, and technology projects. For IT projects, a 2004 industry study by the Standish Group found an average cost overrun of 43 percent; 71 percent of projects came in over budget, exceeded time estimates, and had estimated too narrow a scope; and total waste was estimated at $55 billion per year in the US alone.
Many major construction projects have incurred cost overruns; cost estimates used to decide whether important transportation infrastructure should be built can mislead grossly and systematically.
Usage examples of "cost overrun".
The first target was Lieutenant Commander Phist, a whistle-blower who had blown the whistle on a billion dollar cost overrun, whose Navy career had of course been destroyed by his honesty.
Palpatine's misgivings had been soothed away by the simple expedient of Kuat Drive Yards absorbing an unplanned cost overrun, by Kuat of Kuat's personal orders, on the design change orders for an operational wing of a half-dozen new Imperial battle cruisers.
Then he had blown the whistle on a billion-dollar cost overrun that was bilking the Navy of hard-pressed resources and reducing combat efficiency.
If you tell a Post reporter that there's a ten-million-dollar cost overrun on a control circuit for a fighter plane, and anyway, the circuit doesn't even work, he'll say, 'So what's new?
He was very glad to have added a healthy premium to the job, plus a provision for a cost overrun for exactly those reasons.
The term cost overrun made Miles's teeth hurt, in light of Dagoola.