Inexpensive

How to spell inexpensive

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce inexpensive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inexpensive mean?

1. adjectiveCosting little money; not expensive.

Inexpensive in a sentence

• The hotel was clean, central, and surprisingly inexpensive.

• They furnished the whole flat with inexpensive second-hand pieces.

Where does inexpensive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the Latin verb pendere, which literally meant 'to weigh' or 'to hang', and which came to mean 'to pay' because money in early commerce was weighed out on scales. From the related form expendere, meaning 'to weigh out' or 'to pay out', English eventually drew 'expense' and the adjective 'expensive' through Old French in the medieval period. The negative prefix 'in-', meaning 'not', was then attached to produce 'inexpensive', a relatively late and plainly English construction that simply means 'not costly'. The same pendere root surfaces in a surprising family of words, including 'pension', 'pendant', 'suspend', and 'ponder', all carrying a faint trace of weighing or hanging. The spelling trap is the middle: the syllable is 'pen', as in payment, never 'pan', and the prefix is 'in-' rather than the 'un-' that adults sometimes expect.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• ex- (out)
• pens (from pendere: to weigh, pay)
• -ive (adjective suffix)