consumer price index

noun

: an index measuring the change in the cost of typical wage-earner purchases of goods and services expressed as a percentage of the cost of these same goods and services in some base period

called also cost-of-living index

Examples of consumer price index in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The consumer price index ticked up just 0.1% from April to May, the government said last week, a sign that price pressures are muted. —Arkansas Online, 25 June 2025

And, most crucially, inflation in May — based on the consumer price index — ticked up just 0.1% for the month, lower than estimated. —Yeo Boon Ping, CNBC, 19 June 2025

Inflation ticked up slightly in May consumer price index (CPI) to a 2.4-percent annual increase from 2.3 percent in April. —Tobias Burns, The Hill, 18 June 2025

According to consumer price index data released by the Labor Department on Wednesday, rent inflation was at 3.8% in May, the smallest annual increase since January 2022. —Ignacio Calderon, USA Today, 12 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1945, in the meaning defined above

Legal Definition

consumer price index

noun

consumer price in·​dex

: an index measuring the change in the cost of typical wage-earner purchases of goods and services in some base period

called also cost-of-living index