How to Use costly in a Sentence

costly

adjective
  • The decision to wait could be a costly mistake.
  • They won the game, but their best player was injured, so it was a costly victory.
  • It was too costly to fix her car after the accident, so she decided to buy a new car instead.
  • We use less costly materials in our products.
  • Still, the Bud Light saga has been a costly one for the brewer.
    — Dee-Ann Durbin, Fortune, 3 Aug. 2023
  • But in the near term, the tie proved more costly for Washington.
    — Nate Davis, USA TODAY, 5 Dec. 2022
  • The Rays worked two walks to begin the game and both free passes proved costly.
    — Jaylon Thompson, Kansas City Star, 5 July 2024
  • The search for the Atocha’s treasure proved costly for Fisher.
    — April Rubin, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Dec. 2022
  • John sets forth a (very costly) plan to relocate the herd.
    — Katie Bowlby, Country Living, 19 Dec. 2022
  • That walk proved costly, bringing Judge to the plate in position to hit the three-run blast.
    — Andy Kostka, Baltimore Sun, 22 July 2022
  • But in the long run, not leveraging AI at all will be even costlier.
    — Alon Goren, Forbes, 20 Sep. 2024
  • That stoppage of play proved costly, because the snap went high and slipped through the holder's hands.
    — The Courier-Journal, 5 Dec. 2022
  • Renting near the beach has never looked so good — or so costly.
    — Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Feb. 2024
  • Analysts have said the months of bloody fighting in Bakhmut have been costly for both sides.
    — Jennifer Hassan, Washington Post, 13 Mar. 2023
  • Getting a background check will be more costly in the coming year.
    — Olivia Evans, The Courier-Journal, 30 Dec. 2022
  • Fighting here began last spring and it's been bitter and costly to both sides.
    — Brian Mann, NPR, 24 Dec. 2024
  • More chefs will get out of the hamster wheel of costly meal creation and will set up shop in smaller, more low-key places.
    — Dana McMahan, The Courier-Journal, 28 Mar. 2023
  • These are less common and more costly than air-source options.
    — Pranshu Verma, Washington Post, 21 July 2022
  • The sale of assets, including the home, cars, etc., can also be costly.
    — Alicia Adamczyk, Fortune, 7 May 2024
  • The final preseason game against the Chiefs was costly for the Browns from an injury standpoint.
    — cleveland, 26 Aug. 2023
  • But the decision to change goaltenders proved costly, as Petersen was at fault for the score that put the Kraken back in front.
    — Dan Greenspan, ajc, 30 Nov. 2022
  • Over the years, tech titans have incurred costly fines in the millions, even billions at times.
    — Adriana Lee, WWD, 4 Nov. 2024
  • Two more costly turnovers at inopportune times cost the Terps in the second half.
    — Ryan McFadden, Baltimore Sun, 15 Jan. 2023
  • Caveat: The numbers in last week's report are estimates and hosting the Games could grow more costly over the next decade.
    — Kim Bojórquez, Axios, 16 July 2024
  • Rebuilding the span will be a costly endeavor, but bills for the cleanup process have started to come in, too.
    — Hayes Gardner, Baltimore Sun, 25 June 2024
  • Not to mention that having RDJ back for more than one movie could be very costly for Marvel.
    — Maren Estrada, BGR, 29 Dec. 2022
  • While the garage will still be made up of five floors, those floors will be smaller, and make maintenance of the garage less costly, Brennan said.
    — cleveland, 24 Dec. 2022
  • Until that kind of scale is achieved, the transition will continue to be a costly grind.
    — Tom Randall, Fortune, 8 Sep. 2023
  • Broadway is a costly, heavily unionized business and stars like Washington and Clooney don’t like to get tied up in the same project for months, let alone years.
    — Chris Jones, New York Daily News, 6 Apr. 2025
  • Minutes later, Powell warned that the scope and scale of Trump’s new reciprocal tariffs were greater — and potentially more costly — than anticipated.
    — Sylvan Lane, The Hill, 4 Apr. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'costly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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