costar

From co- + star.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkəʊstɑː(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England):

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costar (plural costars)

1. (acting) A person who shares star billing with another.

   The once famous actor objected to his costar having a bigger dressing room.

2. (acting) A person who slightly lacks the status to be considered a star.

   Alas, always a costar but never a star.

costar (third-person singular simple present costars, present participle costarring, simple past and past participle costarred)

1. (intransitive) To perform with the billing of a costar.

   People thought his career was over but now he will get to costar on Broadway next month.

2. (transitive) To feature (a number of star performers) jointly.
   • 2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎^[1]:

     Purchasing a snowplow transforms Homer into a new man. Mr. Burns' laziest employee suddenly becomes an ambitious self-starter who buys ad time on local television at 3:17 A.M^[sic] (prime viewing hours, Homer gingerly volunteers, for everyone from alcoholics to the unemployable to garden-variety angry loners) and makes a homemade commercial costarring his family.

• Castor, Castro, Cators, Croats, acrost, actors, castor, scroat, scrota, tarocs

From Latin constāre.

costar (first-person singular indicative present costo, past participle costáu)

1. to cost (incur a charge, a price)

Inherited from Latin cōnstāre. Compare Occitan costar, French coûter, Spanish costar. Doublet of constar, a borrowing from Latin.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [kusˈta]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [kosˈta]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [kosˈtaɾ]

• Audio (Barcelona):

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• Rhymes: -a(ɾ)

costar (first-person singular present costo, first-person singular preterite costí, past participle costat); root stress: (Central, Valencia, Balearic) /ɔ/

1. to cost (have a given price)
   • 2009, Jean Grave, Les Aventures d'en Nono:

     Digues, mare, quant costarà un llibre de contes[?]

     Tell me, mother, how much does a story book cost?

2. to be very difficult

• Alcover, Antoni Maria; Moll, Francesc de Borja (1963), “costar”, in Diccionari català-valencià-balear (in Catalan)

From Old Occitan costar, from Latin constāre.

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costar

1. to cost

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

Inherited from Old Spanish costar, from Latin cōnstāre; the o-ue alternation may have been influenced by the unrelated noun cuesta. Doublet of constar, a borrowing.

• IPA^(key): /kosˈtaɾ/ [kosˈt̪aɾ]
• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: cos‧tar

costar (first-person singular present cuesto, first-person singular preterite costé, past participle costado)

1. to cost

   Cuesta catorce pesos.

   It costs fourteen pesos.

   • 2025 January 22, Reuters, “Nepal aumenta a US$ 15.000 la tarifa para escalar el monte Everest”, in CNN en Español‎^[2]:

     Un permiso para escalar el monte Everest de 8.849 metros (29.032 pies) costará US$ 15.000, dijo Narayan Prasad Regmi, director general del Departamento de Turismo, anunciando un aumento del 36% en la tarifa de US$ 11.000 que ha estado vigente durante casi una década.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. to find something very difficult, to have a hard time with something

   Cuando estoy de pie, me cuesta respirar.

   When I'm standing, I find it hard to breathe. (Literally, “It costs me to breathe.”)

   Le cuesta mucho pronunciar esa palabra.

   He has a really hard time pronouncing that word. (Literally, “It costs him a lot to pronounce that word.”)

In the second sense, the subject and object roles are inverted relative to the English phrasing, as with gustar.

• “costar”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

• gostar

From Latin constāre. Compare Italian costare.

costar

1. (intransitive) to cost

* Venetan conjugation varies from one region to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.