Algo como isso deve acontecer.
$ du -s application[12]
Exemplo
$ ls -l
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 2 saml saml 4096 Nov 28 01:51 application1
drwxrwxr-x 2 saml saml 4096 Nov 28 01:51 application1_edit
drwxrwxr-x 2 saml saml 4096 Nov 28 01:51 application2
drwxrwxr-x 2 saml saml 4096 Nov 28 01:51 application2_edit
Uso de disco:
$ du -s application[12]
4 application1
4 application2