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When I want to say that a price is low, I can say:

It costs only $200.

How can I say that $200 is a lot?

It costs < my word > $200.

Of course, I could say that it costs an arm and a leg, but I'm looking for something that can refer to many nouns, not only prices and is an antonym of only.

Is there such word? If there isn't, how can I generally express its meaning?

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  • Restructure the sentence; “$” goes before the value. (I'd say “It's quite expensive at $200.”) – user3395 May 21 '16 at 13:35
  • There's a slight nuance of additional meaning in, say, It costs as much as / anything up to / at least / no less than $200, but any of those would also imply that the speaker thinks the price is "relatively high". Alternatively, you could stress the currency unit It costs two hundred dollars! to make your attitude clear. – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica May 21 '16 at 14:02
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    I'm not sure why you're trying to patternize English. However, “high” may be suitable to describe some of the above-mentioned. – user3395 May 21 '16 at 14:42
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    You can use "as much as" or "whopping" or "rip-off" depending on context. I believe you read my answer and I decided to delete my answer because of some nonconstructive comments. Good luck. – user24743 May 22 '16 at 15:12
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    As much as works, but whopping and rip-off are ungrammatical in the OP's sentence. – snailplane♦ May 22 '16 at 15:22
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I think the nearest antonym, in that context, is fully:

It costs fully $200.

But fully is relatively rare, especially in speech; if you went around saying fully <amount> anywhere near as often as people say only <amount>, it would be a noticeable quirk. Also, fully is a bit more restrictive; for example, whereas you can say "only about $200" if it's actually $205, you can't say *"fully about $200" if it's actually only $195. (But in that case you can say "almost $200", which conveys the same idea — almost implies that it's high — and is much more common anyway. And, incidentally, if the price is over $200, then the usual expression is "over $200", which, again, conveys that it's high. It's only if it's exactly $200 that we need something like fully to express our reaction.)

There are a few other similar expressions, such as "a whopping $200" or "a full $200", but none of them are all that common. Instead, I think it's more common to convey your feelings on a price with tone of voice and general-purpose "wow" expressions:

It costs $200!
It costs $200??!!!
It costs 200 <expletive> dollars!

optionally augmented with other aspects of the wording:

It costs more than my smartphone!
It costs $200. Not worth it.
That little piece of plastic costs $200.
It costs $200 . . . let's shop around.
It costs $200, because they know they have a monopoly.
It costs $200, 'cause, not like I really needed to make rent this month, anyway . . .

(Not that tone of voice is always successful. I can recall quite a few times where one person expressed surprise about a number, and another person had to ask, "Were you expecting higher, or lower?". Of course, one nice thing about conversation is that we can clarify these things interactively, but it does kinda ruin the moment. :-P )

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