Noun

price (plural prices)

1. The cost required to gain possession of something.
2. The cost of an action or deed.
   • I paid a high price for my folly.

Derived terms

• price stability

Verb

to price (third-person singular simple present prices, present participle pricing, simple past and past participle priced)

1. To determine the monetary value of (an item), to put a price on.
2. (obsolete) To pay the price of, to make reparation for.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ix:

     Thou damned wight, / The author of this fact, we here behold, / What iustice can but iudge against thee right, / With thine owne bloud to price his bloud, here shed in sight.

In ordinary usage, price is the quantity of payment or compensation given from one party to another in return for goods or services.

In all modern economies, the overwhelming majority of prices are quoted in (and the transactions involve) units of some form of currency. Although in theory, prices could be quoted as quantities of other goods or services this sort of barter exchange is rarely seen.

Price can sometimes alternatively refer to the quantity of payment requested by a seller of goods or services, rather than the eventual payment amount. This requested amount is often called the asking price or selling price, while the actual payment may be called the transaction price or traded price. Likewise, the bid price or buying price is the quantity of payment offered by a buyer of goods or services, although this meaning is more common in asset or financial markets than in consumer markets.