A dearly-won victory.    From Wordnet, Princeton University. 

But he does not enjoy his newfound, dearly-won kingship.    From Wordnik.com.  [Listal promoted] Reference

It is a hard-fought and dearly-won battle, by which sinful man may reach Heaven.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Treasury of Sacred Song] Reference

The enemy had been driven off with heavy loss, but the little victory had been dearly-won.    From Wordnik.com.  [Fix Bay'nets The Regiment in the Hills] Reference

In such a society, art could hardly have had a mission other than the glorification of a power without limit and without control -- a power to which alone the Assyrians had to look for a continuance of their dearly-won supremacy.    From Wordnik.com.  [A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria, v. 1] Reference

She was much troubled about it, as she stood looking into the flushed tearful face, with all that light of defiance behind the tears, and felt instinctively that little Rosa, still only a pretty, obstinate, vain, uneducated little girl, was more than a match for herself, with all her dearly-won experiences.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Perpetual Curate] Reference

A storm suggests something very different to my mind: a sudden down-rushing wind from the mountains, which carries away houses -- for which reason they are secured with ropes at home; waves from the Arctic Sea, which bury high rocks and islands in foam, and roll ground-seas of innumerable fathoms 'depth, so that vessels are suddenly dashed to pieces in the middle of the ocean; crowds of brave men sailing for their very lives before the wind, and not for their lives only, but also to save the dearly-won cargo for the sake of those at home, and, even in deadly peril, trying to lend a hand to a capsized comrade; I think of the shipwreck of countless boats and vessels on a winter evening, in the hollows of the foaming waves.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Visionary Pictures From Nordland] Reference