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overheads

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,535 of 15,258neutral

Overheads are the running costs a business pays whatever it sells. Cut overheads, high overheads, cover the overheads.

Rent, insurance and salaries are the usual ones, and they are what makes a quiet week dangerous — the bills arrive whether anybody buys anything or not. In American usage the word is singular, overhead. The distinction from direct costs is fundamental to pricing.

Definitions of overheads

  1. 1nounoverheadsThe running costs a business pays whatever it sells.C1

    “Running the shop from home keeps our overheads low.”

overheads is a cost.

Where it comes from

  1. Old English

    oferhēafod

  2. Middle English

    owerheved

  3. English

    overhead

  4. English, today

    overheads

overhead comes from Middle English owerheved, over-hed, over hede, from Old English oferhēafod, equivalent to over- + head. Compare German Low German overhoopt, överhoopt, German überhaupt. overchief.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Business & Money

Practise this word

overheads in the wild

  • Business overheads fall into two main categories: administrative overheads and manufacturing overheads.

    Overhead (business)

  • While advances in quality have certainly been achieved, it has involved increased costs and is in danger of incurring unsustainable environmental overheads.

    International Grape Genome Program

  • TAC includes not just the costs of materials and labour, but also of all manufacturing overheads (whether "fixed" or "variable").

    Total absorption costing

  • In the alternative Emden Formula, only the actual head office overheads percentage is used.

    Hudson Formula

  • Few meals are cooked on site, and this among other reasons leads to low overheads and thus the possibility to charge lower prices than in bars.

    Gamaekjip

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the oferhēafod family

overhead

overheads — used about once every 23,598 pages · #13,535 · point at the bar for the others