encarecer

to make more expensive

verb en-kah-reh-SEHR Rare

Also means

to raise the price of

Usage Note

Encarecer is used in economic and journalistic registers to describe price increases; Los combustibles han encarecido la vida means 'Fuels have made life more expensive.' The reflexive encarecerse is equally common: Los alquileres se han encarecido ('Rents have gone up'). It also has a literary sense of 'to extol' or 'to urge strongly', though this is rare today.

Examples

"La guerra encarece los alimentos básicos."

Natural Translation

The war makes basic foodstuffs more expensive.

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