All words › HSK 1 · Money & shopping
贵
Meaning
- expensive
- (bound form) highly valued; precious
- (bound form) noble; of high rank
Example sentence
这个不贵。
This is not expensive.
The character 贵
贵 has 贝 at its foot, the cowrie shell that served as money, so the price is written into the character. Expensive — 太贵了 — and then valued: 宝贵 precious, and 贵姓, the polite way to ask a surname.