costly

Other forms of costly

comparative or superlative

costlier

comparative or superlative

costliest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about costly

What does costly mean?

costly means "entailing great loss or sacrifice". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in costly?

costly has 2 syllables: cost-ly. The stress falls on "cost". In IPA it is /ˈkɑstli/.

What is another word for costly?

Close synonyms include dearly-won, dear, high-priced, pricey, pricy. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is costly a common word?

costly is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.