a. Obs. [f. prec. + -FUL.] Attended with or characterized by expense; costly, expensive. Also, Given to expense, extravagant.
1605. Chapman, All Fools, in Dodsley, O. Pl. (1780), IV. 144. To stay him yet from more expenceful courses.
1624. Wotton, Archit., in Reliq. Wotton. (1672), 35. There is no part of Structure more expencefull then Windows.
1667. Pepys, Diary (1879), IV. 389. The Duchess is not only the proudest woman in the world, but the most expensefull.
1688. Lett. conc. Pres. St. Italy, 162. The expenceful humour that their late Marriages with France has spread among them.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1717), V. 147. An expenseful and laborious Education.
1775. in Ash.
Hence † Expensefully adv., in a manner involving much expense. † Expensefulness, costliness; rarely (of persons) extravagance.
1631. Weever, Anc. Fun. Mon., 316. Sir William Sidley, a learned knight, painefully and expensfully studious of the common good of his countrey.
a. 1613. Overbury, Archduke’s Country, Wks. (1856), 232. The cause of the expensefulnes of it [the war] … is the remotenesse of those provinces from Spaine.
1688. Ld. Delamer, Lett. to daughter, Wks. (1694), 34. She will … by her expencefulness leave her husband no better than she found him.
