0 money that a business or organization has already spent and cannot get back:
From an economic perspective, the previous investments are sunk costs.
If I abandon the project, I know that my advertising expenditure is a sunk cost.
1 money that a company has already spent or invested in a particular project, etc. and that it cannot get back:
Most investment expenditures are largely irreversible - sunk costs that cannot be recovered if market conditions turn out to be worse than expected.
The investment in consolidating a market involves substantial sunk costs and should not be undertaken lightly.
When the big casino operators took a look at the construction site and walked away, that was obviously a sign that the bank's sunk costs were never going to be recovered.
He said the 52m euros spent on electronic voting should now be written off as a sunk cost.
