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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
costly
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a costly mistake (=that costs you money or has a bad result)
▪ Hiring him turned out to be a costly mistake.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ It was a habit of disguise that she recognized as costly but could not be rid of.
▪ Margarines are available at widely differing costs, with the most expensive ones being twice as costly as the least expensive ones.
▪ Per unit of bitterness they are roughly as costly.
extremely
▪ On the other hand, the proposed scheme is going to be extremely costly, both in terms of money and teachers' time.
▪ The failure to stock merchandise that matches customer demand can be extremely costly.
▪ All of these methods are extremely costly and frankly are not helping the initial cause of the problem.
▪ A breakdown would be extremely costly and dangerous.
▪ There is no point in dimming fluorescent light; although it is possible, it is extremely costly and unnecessary.
▪ Meanwhile, the firing from the walls was undiminished, and the last stages of trenching had proved extremely costly.
▪ Relocating individual staff abroad is an extremely costly procedure.
▪ The argument most often put forward against tax relief for childcare is that it would be extremely costly to the Exchequer.
less
▪ Before its completion, there was a greater requirement for a lighter and less costly tank.
▪ Not only does it discredit traditional replication techniques, it also steers the organization toward less costly ways of achieving its ends.
▪ Smaller and less costly items such as pens, beauty products and food are much more obvious candidates for a more general distribution.
▪ From a cash-flow standpoint, that is less costly than actually paying your corporation an additional $ 200 in interest.
▪ Instead it utilised materials less costly and more readily obtainable.
▪ Short-term debt is generally less costly than long-term debt but is also riskier.
▪ The plans will show a more powerful and less costly product than existing prototypes.
▪ There are less costly ways of recognising the contribution teachers make.
more
▪ This is more costly and is not ideal but it is nevertheless feasible.
▪ Under the new rules, buyouts are much more costly than under the old plan.
▪ Front and rear valances also bolt on, but are more costly than the sills to replace.
▪ New, more costly technologies constantly escalate per capita costs.
▪ However, all this makes the Rolls a more costly proposition if it needs repairing.
▪ The company announced Tuesday it had adopted a shareholder rights plan designed to make a takeover more costly.
▪ He said suing the building society would only delay matters and make resolving the problem more costly.
▪ Yet the effort, far more costly than anything ever attempted by any government, has not produced the expected returns.
most
▪ Yet in all but a very few, it is people that are the organisation's most costly and most valuable asset.
▪ Indeed, the 1996 campaign season is headed for the history books as the most costly in history.
▪ It is the most costly spectacle on earth and it can not be repeated again this century.
▪ Aundray Bruce committed the most costly one, on third-and-5 in the first quarter.
▪ I love beautiful things, simple things, but they are the most costly.
▪ I have chosen the most costly problems, those that practitioners see over and over again.
potentially
▪ Amgen also said it would pay for any human trials to test the drugs, a potentially costly expense.
so
▪ He received no reply; seldom can a mislaid letter have had so costly a sequel.
▪ Not all good day care is so costly.
too
▪ City Lands director Peter Coffey said alternative access routes were impractical or too costly.
Too controversial, some warned. Too costly.
▪ It's too far and much too costly and they couldn't possibly cover their expenses.
▪ These cases are too costly and too risky for most lawyers and most litigants.
▪ It is too inflexible, too costly, and too rigid.
▪ Its peeling paint and broken windows stand testimony that it went out of business because it had become too costly to maintain.
▪ Furthermore, the packets were too costly for the average people to buy, conflicting with the second criterion.
▪ In early experiments I actually used Guinness in the dough but it is too costly.
very
▪ Relocating an employee can prove very costly.
▪ The unwise patronage policy of the Santa Anna administration had been very costly.
▪ Rivers also flood, and such floods are sometimes very costly in terms of loss of life and destruction of property.
▪ Not very costly, but there is some cost involved.
▪ However, to try to salvage these items would be very costly.
▪ To do so is very costly.
▪ Secondly, wars which involved civilian targets were less dangerous and cheaper to organise, but very costly for the defender.
▪ Like divorce, it is painful and sometimes very costly to buy out a hostile partner.
■ NOUN
business
▪ Internet access is a costly business to run, so revenue has to come from somewhere.
▪ Though a useful vote-catcher before an election, it becomes a costly business thereafter.
▪ Often they are in relatively expensive sites on high streets with costly business rates.
▪ Fossil hunting is a costly business.
▪ Moreover, creating large bodies of worthwhile intellectual property is a specialised and costly business.
mistake
▪ But the pioneer also risks making costly mistakes which its rivals can learn from.
▪ The record shows a tendency to make a couple of kinds of particularly costly mistakes.
▪ The price for not doing so was costly mistakes and severe stress.
▪ To do otherwise could be a costly mistake all round.
▪ But they made a costly mistake in teaching their language to the hoipolloi.
▪ Redesigning chips takes time and money; simulations can help avoid costly mistakes.
▪ After all, if the executives fail in the new location, the employer will have made a costly mistake.
▪ A good frame-maker can keep you from making costly mistakes, says Gelay, such as putting Plexiglas over charcoal.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A lawsuit would be costly and we would probably lose.
▪ Buying all those computers was a costly mistake.
▪ Caring for the park's swans is a costly business - roughly $26,600 per year.
▪ Taylor's pinched nerve has been the team's most costly injury this season.
▪ The finance committee rejected their plan because they said it was too costly.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Convening production lines to largely automated production of flat panel sets would be costly in the short term.
▪ From a cash-flow standpoint, that is less costly than actually paying your corporation an additional $ 200 in interest.
▪ Maximum use of state-of-the-art technology in place of costly and often error-prone personnel.
▪ Producers must receive a higher price to produce these more costly units. 7 Price and quantity supplied are directly related.
▪ Punitive damages potentially could be much more costly to cigarette companies than compensatory damages.
▪ Purchase of market share is seen to be less costly than establishing brands - and is quicker too.
▪ Several of the gifts were costly, including a cup of gold and a crystal salt-set.
▪ Yet the effort, far more costly than anything ever attempted by any government, has not produced the expected returns.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Costly

Costly \Cost"ly\ (k?st"l?; 115), a. [From Cost expense.]

  1. Of great cost; expensive; dear.

    He had fitted up his palace in the most costly and sumptuous style, for the accomodation of the princess.
    --Prescott.

  2. Gorgeous; sumptuous. [Poetic.]

    To show how costly summer was at hand.
    --Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
costly

late 14c., from cost + -ly (1). Earlier formation with the same sense were costful (mid-13c.), costious (mid-14c.).

Wiktionary
costly

a. Of high cost; expensive.

WordNet
costly
  1. adj. entailing great loss or sacrifice; "a dearly-won victory" [syn: dearly-won]

  2. having a high price; "costly jewelry"; "high-priced merchandise"; "much too dear for my pocketbook"; "a pricey restaurant" [syn: dear(p), high-priced, pricey, pricy]

  3. [also: costliest, costlier]

Wikipedia
Costly

Costly is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

  • Anthony Costly (born 1954), Honduran footballer
  • Carlo Costly (born 1982), Honduran footballer
Costly (album)

Costly is the second studio album by Ghost Ship. BEC Recordings released the album on August 28, 2015.

Usage examples of "costly".

Thus I stared at balmacaans and surtouts, dolmans and jerkins of paduasoy, matelasse, and a hundred other costly fabrics without ever going into the places that displayed them, or even stopping to examine them.

She had never had her own insignificance so painfully impressed upon her as in this Belgravian mansion, where the engagement, the enormous trousseau, the costly wedding presents, were matters of the deepest moment.

Parking a car in the financial district must be costly, too, and the cabs in London are good.

It might be somewhat more costly in financial terms, but since the reconstruction of Iraq is expected to dwarf the costs of any military campaign and we would have to pay for that regardless of how we handled the overthrow, these costs too are mostly irrelevant.

Buddha, leaning slightly forward, the Dalai Lama was sitting on a throne covered with costly brocade.

We procured a list of works on fungi, and looked for some volume not too deep for our comprehension nor too costly for our purse.

The Hall of Sovereigns is a glittering vast rotunda which ancient masters of all the arts wrought into a vision of glory and beauty with sculptured marbles and incrusted gems and costly goldwork and sunset splendors of color, and there the monarchs of all the globe have assembled every fifty years, with their officers of state, to do homage to the Parents of the Race.

Somewhere along the way, Amelia Corbet had to learn that her hardheadedness was a costly vice.

I did well - he would have lost the hawk otherwise, and verrin hawks are costly and rare.

There was on board a Hebridean woman named Thorgunna, of whom her shipmates said that she owned some costly things, the like of which would be difficult to find in Iceland.

In that way he is compelled not only to live frugally himself, but what is more disagreeable still, to subject his household to the live in the humblest style in a costly and fashionable city, into which wealthy persons are coming from all parts of the country.

Private institutions, well supplied with the numerous and costly aids to the work of the specialist treating nervous diseases, are now a recognized necessity.

The Kentuckian remembered that episode as a foolish and potentially costly assault uphill against a fort, but carried by Colonel Baker with help of a couple of junior officers, a Captain Lee and Lieutenant Grant.

Bandar Abbas, Richard Kerman opened a string of warehouses in southern England, and then invested in a small shipping line to transport the costly wool and silk floor coverings up through the Suez Canal and on through the Mediterranean to Southampton.

Even if the restless crowd could have identified Sir Michael as British, the men and women of New York, intelligent patriots that they were, had a far greater hatred for their own Madisonian government, which had declared this costly, tiresome war that was destroying the economy of their city.