How to say "expensive, dear" in Arabic

Tempting to link this to Hebrew ע-ל-ה, 'to go up' — an expensive price has 'risen', after all. But the roots don't actually match: ghālī is غ-ل-و (ghayn), while the true Arabic cognate of that Hebrew root is ʿālī (عالي, 'high' — see that entry), spelled with ʿayn instead. Ghayn and ʿayn merged into a single Hebrew letter ע many centuries ago, which is exactly why this false connection is so easy to make from the Hebrew side.