cheap
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /t͡ʃip/
enpr: chēp
ipa: /t͡ʃiːp/
rhymes: -iːp
homophone: cheep
Forms: form: cheaper
form: cheapest
form: chap
form: chop
form: ch3ap
Etymology: As a noun, from Middle English chep, from Old English cēap (“trade, market, value”), from Proto-West Germanic *kaup. As a verb, from Middle English chepen, from Old English ċēapian (“to buy, bargain, trade”), from Proto-West Germanic *kaupōn, from Proto-Germanic *kaupōną, a verbal derivative of *kaupô (“trader”), from Latin caupō.
The adjective originated as a shortening of Middle and Early Modern English good cheap, literally “good purchase” (as in “that was good cheap”, i.e. “that was [a] good purchase”). Compare Dutch goedkoop, French bon marché.
Cognates
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”), Norwegian Nynorsk kjøpa (“to buy, purchase”), Icelandic kaup (“purchase, bargain”), kaupa (“to purchase”); also borrowed as Finnish kauppa (“shop, trade”), Russian купить (kupitʹ, “to purchase”), Old Church Slavonic коупити (kupiti, “to purchase”), Bulgarian ку́пя (kúpja, “to purchase”), Serbo-Croatian купити (“to purchase”), Czech koupit (“to purchase”), Polish kupić (“to purchase”).
Senses: examples: text: Where there are many sellers and few purchases, land will be cheap.
ref: 1691, [John Locke], Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money. […], London: […] Awnsham and John Churchill, […], published 1692, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: Datacasting bypasses the wired, terrestrial Internet and is a cheaper way to distribute software than pressing and mailing CDs.
ref: 2000, George Abe, Residential Broadband, Cisco Systems, →ISBN:
text: The cheapest antiager around: a good moisturizer.
ref: 2008, Amy Wechsler, The Mind-Beauty Connection, page 31:
text: [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.
ref: 2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
text: McDonald’s has been vocal about adding more chicken to its menu, which is generally cheaper than beef.
ref: 2024 October 3, Jordan Valinsky, “McDonald’s is finally selling the Chicken Big Mac in the US”, in CNN:
synonyms: word: inexpensive
word: ;
word: affordable
word: ;
word: bargain
word: ;
word: good value
word: ;
word: see also Thesaurus:expensive § Antonyms
antonyms: word: expensive
word: dear
word: costly
word: pricey
word: affordable
word: attainable
word: bargain
raw_tags: as noun adjunct
word: budget
raw_tags: as noun adjunct
word: cheap
word: discount
raw_tags: as noun adjunct
word: economical
word: econo-
word: inexpensive
word: jitney
word: low-end
word: low-priced
word: nickel
word: value
raw_tags: as noun adjunct
glosses: Low or reduced in price.
synonyms: low-quality
shoddy
coordinate_terms: basic
simple
;
primitive
naive
;
utilitarian
unadorned
;
crude
rough
mean
rude
glosses: Of poor quality.
examples: text: You grow cheap in every subject's eye.
ref: 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, (please specify the page number):
synonyms: unvaluable
antonyms: precious
valuable
;
invaluable
priceless
coordinate_terms: valueless
worthless
glosses: Of little worth.
examples: the cheap trick of hiding deadly lava under pushable blocks
glosses: Underhanded or unfair.
raw_tags: of an action or tactic in a game of skill
examples: text: Insurance is expensive, but don't be so cheap that you risk losing your home because of a fire.
glosses: Stingy; mean; excessively frugal.
examples: text: The ETF is trading cheap to NAV right now; we can arb this by buying the ETF and selling the underlying constituents.
topics: business
finance
synonyms: undervalued
underpriced
antonyms: rich
overvalued
overpriced
glosses: Trading at a price level which is low relative to historical trends, a similar asset, or (for derivatives) a theoretical value.
examples: text: the algorithm is cheap to compute
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: Taking little of system time or resources.
Derived terms: all over one like a cheap suit
Chapman
cheap and cheerful
cheap and nasty
cheap-arse Tuesday
cheap as borscht
cheap as chips
cheapass
cheap at half the price
cheap at the price
cheap Charlie
cheap date
cheap drunk
cheapen
cheapie
cheapish
cheapjack
cheap John
cheap like borscht
cheaply
cheapness
cheapo
cheapoid
cheapquel
cheap seats
cheapshit
cheap shot
cheap-shot
cheap skate
cheapskate
cheap-skate
cheapstead
cheapster
cheap thrill
cheap trick
cheap tripper
dirt-cheap
dirt cheap
dog-cheap
el cheapo
fold like a cheap suit
fold like a cheap suitcase
fold like a cheap tent
for the cheap seats
go cheap
hold cheap
lie like a cheap rug
lie like a cheap watch
on the cheap
play it cheap
play to the cheap seats
supercheap
talk is cheap
ultracheap