"sunk costs fallacy" meaning in All languages combined

See sunk costs fallacy on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: sunk costs fallacies [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|head=sunk costs fallacy}} sunk costs fallacy (plural sunk costs fallacies)
  1. The systematic tendency to allow unrecoverable past investments of time, money, or effort to affect a forward-looking decision, thereby continuing a project even when expected future costs exceed expected future benefits. Related terms: double down, throw good money after bad Translations (phenomenon): uponneiden kustannusten harha (Finnish)

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sunk costs fallacies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "head": "sunk costs fallacy"
      },
      "expansion": "sunk costs fallacy (plural sunk costs fallacies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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        },
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        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The systematic tendency to allow unrecoverable past investments of time, money, or effort to affect a forward-looking decision, thereby continuing a project even when expected future costs exceed expected future benefits."
      ],
      "id": "en-sunk_costs_fallacy-en-noun-fTpEo8OM",
      "links": [
        [
          "systematic",
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        ],
        [
          "tendency",
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        ],
        [
          "allow",
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        ],
        [
          "unrecoverable",
          "unrecoverable"
        ],
        [
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        ],
        [
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "money",
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        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "affect",
          "affect"
        ],
        [
          "forward-looking",
          "forward-looking"
        ],
        [
          "decision",
          "decision"
        ],
        [
          "continuing",
          "continuing"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ],
        [
          "expected",
          "expected"
        ],
        [
          "future",
          "future"
        ],
        [
          "cost",
          "cost"
        ],
        [
          "exceed",
          "exceed"
        ],
        [
          "expected",
          "expected"
        ],
        [
          "future",
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        ],
        [
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        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "double down"
        },
        {
          "word": "throw good money after bad"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "lang_code": "fi",
          "sense": "phenomenon",
          "word": "uponneiden kustannusten harha"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sunk costs fallacy"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sunk costs fallacies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
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      },
      "expansion": "sunk costs fallacy (plural sunk costs fallacies)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "double down"
    },
    {
      "word": "throw good money after bad"
    }
  ],
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Finnish translations"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The systematic tendency to allow unrecoverable past investments of time, money, or effort to affect a forward-looking decision, thereby continuing a project even when expected future costs exceed expected future benefits."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "systematic",
          "systematic"
        ],
        [
          "tendency",
          "tendency"
        ],
        [
          "allow",
          "allow"
        ],
        [
          "unrecoverable",
          "unrecoverable"
        ],
        [
          "past",
          "past"
        ],
        [
          "investment",
          "investment"
        ],
        [
          "time",
          "time"
        ],
        [
          "money",
          "money"
        ],
        [
          "effort",
          "effort"
        ],
        [
          "affect",
          "affect"
        ],
        [
          "forward-looking",
          "forward-looking"
        ],
        [
          "decision",
          "decision"
        ],
        [
          "continuing",
          "continuing"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ],
        [
          "expected",
          "expected"
        ],
        [
          "future",
          "future"
        ],
        [
          "cost",
          "cost"
        ],
        [
          "exceed",
          "exceed"
        ],
        [
          "expected",
          "expected"
        ],
        [
          "future",
          "future"
        ],
        [
          "benefit",
          "benefit"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "phenomenon",
      "word": "uponneiden kustannusten harha"
    }
  ],
  "word": "sunk costs fallacy"
}

Download raw JSONL data for sunk costs fallacy meaning in All languages combined (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.