exorbitantex‧or‧bi‧tant /ɪɡˈzɔːbətənt $ -ɔːr-/ ●○○ adjective 
exorbitant rates of interest► see thesaurus at expensive—exorbitantly adverb
WORD ORIGINexorbitant
Origin:
1400-1500 French, Late Latin, present participle of exorbitare ‘to leave the track’, from Latin orbita ‘track’EXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- It's a nice hotel, but the prices are exorbitant.
- And the price of entertainment everywhere is exorbitant.
- Each year time and money is wasted by the exorbitant amount of telephoning required to gather in all this information. 8.
- It is a price that today may seem exorbitant to many.
- Only 10 to 15 percent goes toward administrative costs, which is certainly not exorbitant.
- The exorbitant fee caused uproar in the land.
- We couldn't afford to buy and rents are exorbitant.
THESAURUS
costing a lot of money: · an expensive car· Apartments in the city are very expensive.· An underground train system is expensive to build.
costing a lot of money. You use high about rents/fees/prices/costs. Don’t use expensive with these words: · Rents are very high in this area.· Lawyers charge high fees.· the high cost of living in Japan
[not before noun] British English spoken expensive compared to the usual price: · £3.50 seems rather dear for a cup of coffee.
informal expensive: · The clothes are beautiful but pricey.
expensive in a way that wastes money: · Upgrading the system would be very costly.· They were anxious to avoid a costly legal battle.
informal to be very expensive: · The necklace must have cost a fortune!
much too expensive: · Some accountants charge exorbitant fees.
astronomical prices, costs, and fees are extremely high: · the astronomical cost of developing a new spacecraft· the astronomical prices which some people had paid for their seats· The cost of living is astronomical.
too expensive and not worth the price: · The DVDs were vastly overpriced.
someone does not have enough money to buy or do something: · Most people can’t afford to send their children to private schools.
Longman Language Activatorwhen something is too expensive if you can't afford something, you do not have enough money to buy it or pay for it: · I really need a new coat, but I can't afford one.can't afford to do something: · We couldn't afford to go on holiday last year.can't afford it: · Hiring a lawyer would be expensive, and she just couldn't afford it.
prices, charges, rents etc that are exorbitant or extortionate , are very much higher than they should be, and you think they are unfair: · The restaurant charges exorbitant prices for very ordinary food.· Interest rates for some of the credit cards are extortionate.
spoken informal you say something is a rip-off when you think someone is unfairly charging too much money for it: · Eighty dollars for a pair of jeans? What a rip-off!a complete/total rip-off: · The vacation package we bought ended up being a total rip-off.
prices or costs that are prohibitive or prohibitively expensive are so high that people cannot pay them or decide not to pay them because they are too expensive: · For most people, the cost of living in the centre of town is prohibitive.· The computer was superior to other models, but it was prohibitively expensive.
prices that are much higher than usual and much higher than they should be, so that the person who charges them can make a big profit: · Nightclubs often charge inflated prices for drinks.at inflated prices: · Some people buy large blocks of tickets and then try to sell them at vastly inflated prices.
informal prices, charges, rents etc that are steep seem unusually or surprisingly high: · I think £7 for a drink is a bit steep, don't you?· It's hard to find an apartment around here, and when you do the rents are pretty steep.
British /be highway robbery American informal if you say that a price or charge is daylight robbery or highway robbery you mean it is very much higher than it should be: · I'm not paying £5 for an ice-cream - that's daylight robbery!· We knew it was highway robbery, but we had no choice but to pay.
to make something so expensive that people will no longer buy it because they can buy something similar at a lower price: be priced out of the market: · British electrical equipment is likely to be priced out of the market by cheap imports.price yourself out of the market: · Ford don't want to raise its prices any more - it's worried about pricing itself out of the market.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE ENTRY exorbitant rates of interestCOLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
an exorbitant price, amount of money etc is much higher than it should be SYN astronomicalexorbitant rent/prices etc exorbitant rates of interest (=much too high)· £10,000 seemed an exorbitant price for the rug.
(=extremely high)· Some landlords charge exorbitant rents.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSNOUN· The exorbitant fee caused uproar in the land.
· Slipped in as if it is a mere trifle, a quite exorbitant price!· So we paid an exorbitant price for the decisions that were made in good faith and for good purpose.· A few farmers even managed to do very well out of the exorbitant prices charged to urban residents for a few mouthfuls of grain.
· When that failed they attempted an exorbitant rent so I intervened.
exorbitant rates of interest► see thesaurus at expensive—exorbitantly adverb