price index

noun

: an index number expressing the level of a group of commodity prices relative to the level of the prices of the same commodities during an arbitrarily chosen base period and used to indicate changes in the level of prices from one period to another

Examples of price index in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There’s no dedicated report that tracks what Americans spend on prom, so CNBC Select looked at the closest available data — from government price indexes to an index created by a college professor — to get a sense of what the big night actually costs. —Andreina Rodriguez, CNBC, 29 May 2026

Economists also watch it because some of its components, notably measures of healthcare and financial services, flow into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, price index. —Paul Wiseman, Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2026

Economists also watch it because some of its components, notably measures of health care and financial services, flow into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, price index. —Paul Wiseman, Chicago Tribune, 13 May 2026

My trusty spreadsheet looked back to 1990 to see how annual swings in the 30-year mortgage rate, as tracked by Freddie Mac, meshed with home-price indexes from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and job counts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. —Jonathan Lansner, Oc Register, 13 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1886, in the meaning defined above