Adjacent Words

Cheap definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CHEAP, a.
1. Bearing a low price, in market; that may be purchased at a low price; that is, at a price as low or lower than the usual price of the article or commodity, or at a price less than the real value. The sense is always comparative; for a price deemed cheap at one time is considered dear at another.
It is a principle which the progress of political science has clearly established; a principle that illustrates at once the wisdom of the creator and the blindness of human cupidity, that it is cheaper to hire the labor of freemen than to compel the labor of slaves.
2. Being of small value; common; not respected; as cheap beauty.
Make not yourself cheap in the eyes of the world.
CHEAP, n. Bargain; purchase; as in the phrases, good cheap, better cheap; the original phrases from which we have cheap.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: relatively low in price or charging low prices; "it would have been cheap at twice the price"; "inexpensive family restaurants" [syn: cheap, inexpensive] [ant: expensive]
2: tastelessly showy; "a flash car"; "a flashy ring"; "garish colors"; "a gaudy costume"; "loud sport shirts"; "a meretricious yet stylish book"; "tawdry ornaments" [syn: brassy, cheap, flash, flashy, garish, gaudy, gimcrack, loud, meretricious, tacky, tatty, tawdry, trashy]
3: of very poor quality; flimsy [syn: bum, cheap, cheesy, chintzy, crummy, punk, sleazy, tinny]
4: embarrassingly stingy [syn: cheap, chinchy, chintzy]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English chep, from Old English c?ap trade; akin to Old High German kouf trade; both ultimately from Latin caupo tradesman Date: before 12th century obsolete bargain II. adjective Date: 1509 1. a. purchasable below the going price or the real value b. charging or obtainable at a low price <a good cheap hotel> <cheap tickets> c. depreciated in value (as by currency inflation) <cheap dollars> 2. gained or done with little effort <a cheap victory> <talk is cheap> 3. a. of inferior quality or worth ; tawdry, sleazy <cheap workmanship> b. contemptible because of lack of any fine, lofty, or redeeming qualities <feeling cheap> c. stingy <my cheap uncle> 4. of money obtainable at a low rate of interest • cheap adverb • cheapish adjective • cheapishly adverb • cheaply adverb • cheapness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & adv. --adj. 1 low in price; worth more than its cost (a cheap holiday; cheap labour). 2 charging low prices; offering good value (a cheap restaurant). 3 of poor quality; inferior (cheap housing). 4 a costing little effort or acquired by discreditable means and hence of little worth (cheap popularity; a cheap joke). b contemptible; despicable (a cheap criminal). --adv. cheaply (got it cheap). Phrases and idioms: cheap and nasty of low cost and bad quality. dirt cheap very cheap. feel cheap feel ashamed or contemptible. on the cheap cheaply. Derivatives: cheapish adj. cheaply adv. cheapness n. Etymology: obs. phr. good cheap f. cheap a bargain f. OE ceap barter, ult. f. L caupo innkeeper

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cheap Cheap, n. [AS. ce['a]p bargain, sale, price; akin to D. Koop purchase, G. Kauf, ICel. kaup bargain. Cf. Cheapen, Chapman, Chaffer, Cope, v. i.] A bargain; a purchase; cheapness. [Obs.] The sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe. --Shak.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cheap Cheap, a. [Abbrev. fr. ``good cheap'': a good purchase or bargain; cf. F. bon march['e], [`a] bon march['e]. See Cheap, n., Cheapen.] 1. Having a low price in market; of small cost or price, as compared with the usual price or the real value. Where there are a great sellers to a few buyers, there the thing to be sold will be cheap. --Locke. 2. Of comparatively small value; common; mean. You grow cheap in every subject's eye. --Dryden. Dog cheap, very cheap, -- a phrase formed probably by the catachrestical transposition of good cheap. [Colloq.]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cheap Cheap, adv. Cheaply. --Milton.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cheap Cheap, v. i. To buy; to bargain. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(cheaper, cheapest) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. Goods or services that are cheap cost less money than usual or than you expected. Smoke detectors are cheap and easy to put up... Running costs are coming down because of cheaper fuel... They served breakfast all day and sold it cheap. ? expensive, dear ADJ: v-link ADJ, ADJ n, v n ADJ • cheaply It will produce electricity more cheaply than a nuclear plant. ADV: ADV after v • cheapness The cheapness and simplicity of the design makes it ideal for our task. 2. If you describe goods as cheap, you mean they cost less money than similar products but their quality is poor. Don't resort to cheap copies; save up for the real thing. ...a tight suit made of some cheap material. = shoddy ADJ: ADJ n 3. If you describe someone's remarks or actions as cheap, you mean that they are unkindly or insincerely using a situation to benefit themselves or to harm someone else. These tests will inevitably be used by politicians to make cheap political points. ADJ: ADJ n [disapproval] 4. If you describe someone as cheap, you are criticizing them for being unwilling to spend money. (AM) Oh, please, Dad, just this once don't be cheap. = mean ADJ: usu v-link ADJ [disapproval] 5. If someone does or buys something on the cheap, they spend less money than they should because they are more concerned with what it costs than with its quality. (INFORMAL) Most modern housing estates are terrible and inevitably done on the cheap. PHRASE: PHR after v [disapproval]

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Low-priced. 2. Common, paltry, poor, mean, indifferent, inferior, of little value, of small account.

Moby Thesaurus

Mickey Mouse, NG, at cost, avaricious, bad, base, beggarly, beneath contempt, beneath one, brummagem, budget, cheapjack, cheaply, cheesy, chintzy, close, closefisted, coarse, common, contemptible, crummy, debasing, degrading, demeaning, deplorable, despicable, disgraceful, easily, easy, economic, economical, economy, fake, flashy, for a song, fourth-class, frugal, garish, gaudy, gimcracky, good-for-naught, good-for-nothing, gutter, hardfisted, humiliating, humiliative, illiberal, inexpensive, inexpensively, inferior, infra dig, infra indignitatem, irregular, junk, junky, lousy, low, low-class, low-grade, low-priced, low-quality, low-test, manageable, mean, measly, meretricious, miserable, miserly, moderate, modest, near, niggardly, no-account, no-good, nominal, not worth having, not worth mentioning, not worthwhile, nugacious, nugatory, on the cheap, opprobrious, ornery, outrageous, paltry, pathetic, penny-pinching, penurious, petty, phony, pinchfisted, pinching, pitiable, pitiful, poor, popular, punk, reasonable, reasonably, reduced, rotten, rubbishy, sad, save-all, scandalous, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, scuzzy, second-best, second-class, second-rate, seedy, sensible, shabby, sham, shameful, shocking, shoddy, sleazy, sorry, stingy, tacky, tatty, tawdry, terrible, third-class, third-rate, tight, tight-fisted, tightfisted, tinny, token, too bad, trashy, trifling, trivial, trumpery, two-bit, two-for-a-cent, two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, unbecoming, unexpensive, ungenerous, unworthy of one, valueless, vile, within means, worth the money, worthless, wretched, wrong