0 money that a business or organization has already spent and cannot get back: --
If I abandon the project, I know that my advertising expenditure is a sunk cost.
From an economic perspective, the previous investments are sunk costs.
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.
He said the 52m euros spent on electronic voting should now be written off as a sunk cost.
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.
The investment in consolidating a market involves substantial sunk costs and should not be undertaken lightly.