price

price n Price, charge, cost, expense can mean what is given or asked in payment for a thing or for its use, or for services. Price and charge in their ordinary nontechnical use commonly designate what is asked or demanded— in the case of price, especially for goods or commodities; in the case of charge, especially for services

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what is the price of this book?

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the price of meat has risen greatly

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the market price of wheat

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the charge for haulage

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goods delivered free of charge within a radius of one hundred miles

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there is a small charge for registering a deed

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In economics, however, price does not necessarily refer to a fixed sum of money asked by a seller, but to the quantity or number of units of one thing exchangeable in barter or sale for another thing

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labor was the first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things— Smith

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Charge, especially in accounting, also applies to what is imposed on one as a financial burden

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the fixed charges of a business include rentals, taxes, interest, and liens

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Cost and expense in their ordinary nontechnical use apply to what is given or surrendered for something

Cost often implying somewhat specifically the payment of the price asked and expense often designating the aggregate amount actually disbursed for something

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they found the cost of the piano made too severe a drain on their resources

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the cost of provisions

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traveling expenses

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the heavy expense of a long illness

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But cost sometimes replaces price with, however, a difference in connotation. Since cost applies to whatever must be given or sacrificed to obtain something, to produce something, or to attain some end whether it be money, labor, or lives or whether it is actually given or sacrificed, it, when replacing price, tends to suggest what will be taken or accepted from one in exchange rather than what the item is worth

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the price of this article is below the cost of its manufacture

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victory will be won only at great cost of life

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he felt that the cost in effort was greater than he could afford

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Expense also may denote expenditure especially but not only of money

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fresh news is got only by enterprise and expense— Justice Holmes

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a convenient way of producing the maximum amount of "copy" with the minimum expense of intellect— Babbitt

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