expensive
ex·pen·sive/ɪkˈspɛn.sɪv/adjective
expensive is spelled E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E, 3 syllables: ex·pen·sive. The wrong spelling people search most is expencive: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 62 of all searches for the word. Expensive is an adjective meaning “Having a high price or cost”.
How many letters and syllables are in expensive?
| Letters | 9: E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ex·pen·sive |
| In writing | 49 times per million words; the 2,072nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, expencive, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell expensive?
Expensive is spelled E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 62 of the searches for expensive in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is expensive?
Expensive appears 49 times per million words in written English, the 2,072nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce expensive?
- /ɪkˈspɛn.sɪv/
- /ɛkˈspɛn.sɪv/
- /ɪkˈspɪn.sɪv/
Expensive has 3 syllables, split ex·pen·sive in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-expensive.ogg, En-uk-expensive.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-expensive.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of expensive
- more expensive comparative
- most expensive superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does expensive mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Having a high price or cost.
- 2
Taking a lot of system time or resources.
an unnecessarily expensive choice of algorithm
- 3
obsoleteGiven to expending a lot of money; profligate, lavish.
- 4
Having a high economy rate.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Expensive in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense having a high price or cost:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | cher, coûteux |
| German | teuer, kostspielig |
| Portuguese | caro |
| Spanish | caro, costoso, dispendioso, oneroso, gravoso, cariola (p.u.) |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does expensive come from?
From Latin *expēnsīvus, from expendō (“to weigh out (money), to pay out”) (whence English expend). By surface analysis, expense + -ive. In the sense of "high-priced" has largely displaced dear.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).