# expensive

/ɪkˈspɛnsɪv/ (US) · /ɛkspˈɛnsɪv/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/expensive
Updated: 2026-06-19

## Senses

### 1. high price

adjective · CEFR A1

costing a lot of money.

For teachers: having a high price or requiring a large financial expenditure.

- I wanted to buy the new phone, but it was too expensive for me.
- The city's real estate market has become so expensive that many young professionals are forced to commute from the outer suburbs.

Usage: Commonly used with 'too' or 'very' to indicate a price that is difficult to afford.

### 2. resource-heavy

adjective · CEFR C1 · Technical

using a lot of a computer's power, memory, or time.

For teachers: requiring significant computational resources, such as processing power, memory, or execution time.

- Running this complex search is very expensive for the server.
- The developer refactored the code because the original sorting algorithm was too computationally expensive for mobile devices.

Usage: Often used to describe specific functions, algorithms, or database queries.

Teaching tip: In a technical context, 'expensive' refers to efficiency rather than money.

## Examples

- That new laptop is very expensive.
- Buying a high-end gaming computer is expensive because the parts are very powerful.
- While the initial hardware purchase was expensive, the long-term savings on energy and maintenance costs justified the investment for the small business.

---

From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.