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Webster 1913 Edition

Cheap

Cheap

(chēp)
,
Noun.
[AS.
ceáp
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.
Shakespeare

Cheap

,
Adj.
[Abbrev. fr. “good
cheap
”: a good purchase or bargain; cf. F.
bon marché
,
à bon marché
. See
Cheap
,
Noun.
,
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.]

Cheap

,
adv.
Cheaply.
Milton.

Cheap

,
Verb.
I.
To buy; to bargain.
[Obs.]
Chaucer.

Webster 1828 Edition

Cheap

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

,
Noun.
Bargain; purchase; as in the phrases, good cheap, better cheap; the original phrases from which we have cheap.

Definition 2024

cheap

cheap

English

Alternative forms

Noun

cheap ‎(plural cheaps)

  1. Trade; traffic; chaffer; chaffering.
  2. A market; marketplace.
  3. Price.
  4. A low price; a bargain.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare
      The sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe.
  5. Cheapness; lowness of price; abundance of supply.

Adjective

cheap ‎(comparative cheaper, superlative cheapest)

  1. Low and/or reduced in price.
    • (Can we date this quote?) John Locke
      Where there are a great sellers to a few buyers, there the thing to be sold will be cheap.
    • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 3, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
      One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.
    • 2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
      [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.
  2. Of poor quality.
  3. Of little worth.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Dryden
      You grow cheap in every subject's eye.
  4. (slang, of an action or tactic in a game of skill) underhand; dubious.
  5. (derogatory) Frugal; stingy.
    Insurance is expensive, but don't be so cheap that you risk losing your home because of a fire.‎
Synonyms
Antonyms
Related terms
See also
  • Appendix:Fighting Game Terms
Translations

Verb

cheap ‎(third-person singular simple present cheaps, present participle cheaping, simple past and past participle cheaped)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To trade; traffic; bargain; chaffer; ask the price of goods; cheapen goods.
  2. (transitive, obsolete) To bargain for; chaffer for; ask the price of; offer a price for; cheapen.
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To buy; purchase.
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To sell.

Derived terms

Usage notes

Use of cheap as a verb has been surpassed by cheapen.

Adverb

cheap ‎(comparative more cheap, superlative most cheap)

  1. Cheaply.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)

Anagrams

Irish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [çapˠ]

Noun

cheap m

  1. Lenited form of ceap.

Verb

cheap m

  1. Lenited form of ceap.

Etymology

From Middle English cheep, chepe / chepen, chep, cheap / cheapien, chapien, from Old English cēap ‎(“cattle, purchase, sale, traffic, business, bargain, gain, payment, value, price, goods, possessions, property, market, saleable commodities, trade”), ċēapian ‎(“to bargain, chaffer, trade, to contract for the purchase or sale of, buy, bribe, endeavor to bribe”), from Proto-Germanic *kaupaz, *kaupô ‎(“inn-keeper, merchant”), Proto-Germanic *kaupōną, *kaupijaną ‎(“to buy, purchase”), from Latin caupō ‎(“tradesman, innkeeper”), related to Ancient Greek κάπηλος ‎(kápēlos, “huckster”), likely a common Mediterranean borrowing into several IE languages, more at caupō. Cognate with Scots chepe ‎(“to sell”), chape ‎(“sale price”), North Frisian keap ‎(“purchase”), West Frisian keap ‎(“purchase, buy, acquisition”), Dutch koop ‎(“buy, purchase, deal”), kopen ‎(“to buy, purchase, shop”), Low German kopen ‎(“to buy”), German Kauf ‎(“trade, traffic, bargain, purchase, buy”), kaufen ‎(“to buy”), Swedish köp ‎(“bargain, purchase”), köpa ‎(“to buy, purchase”), Icelandic kaup ‎(“purchase, bargain”), kaupa ‎(“to purchase”); also borrowed as Finnish kauppa ‎(“shop, trade”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: chēp, IPA(key): /tʃiːp/
  • Rhymes: -iːp
  • Homophone: cheep

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