cheap
Americanadjective
-
costing very little; relatively low in price; inexpensive.
a cheap dress.
-
costing little labor or trouble.
Words are cheap.
-
charging low prices.
a very cheap store.
-
of little account; of small value; mean; shoddy.
cheap conduct; cheap workmanship.
-
embarrassed; sheepish.
He felt cheap about his mistake.
-
obtainable at a low rate of interest.
when money is cheap.
-
of decreased value or purchasing power, as currency depreciated due to inflation.
-
stingy; miserly.
He's too cheap to buy his own brother a cup of coffee.
- Antonyms:
- charitable, generous
adverb
idioms
-
cheap at twice the price, exceedingly inexpensive.
I found this old chair for eight dollars—it would be cheap at twice the price.
-
on the cheap, inexpensively; economically.
She enjoys traveling on the cheap.
adjective
-
costing relatively little; inexpensive; good value
-
charging low prices
a cheap hairdresser
-
of poor quality; shoddy
cheap furniture
cheap and nasty
-
worth relatively little
promises are cheap
-
not worthy of respect; vulgar
-
ashamed; embarrassed
to feel cheap
-
stingy; miserly
-
informal mean; despicable
a cheap liar
-
See chip
-
informal extremely inexpensive
noun
adverb
Related Words
Cheap, inexpensive agree in their suggestion of low cost. Cheap now usually suggests shoddiness, inferiority, showy imitation, complete unworthiness, and the like: a cheap kind of fur. Inexpensive emphasizes lowness of price (although more expensive than cheap ) and suggests that the value is fully equal to the cost: an inexpensive dress. It is often used as an evasion for the more specific cheap.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cheap
First recorded before 900; Middle English cheep (short for phrases such as good cheep “cheap,” literally, “good bargain”), Old English cēap “bargain, market, trade”; cognate with German Kauf, Old Norse kaup; all from Latin caupō “innkeeper, tradesman”; see chapman
Explanation
Something cheap doesn't cost much money. But watch out, because cheap things are also often cheaply made. When prices are low, they're cheap: that's a good thing. However, this word is often an insult. Hitting someone who isn't looking is a cheap shot. Things that aren't very well made and use low-quality materials are cheap. When someone — especially a woman — is dressed in a trashy way, people say "You look cheap!" And if you have a stingy Uncle Scrooge in your family, you can call him cheap or even a cheapskate.
Vocabulary lists containing cheap
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Touran listed other reasons why somehow plugging an aircraft carrier into the grid wouldn’t deliver cheap power.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 7, 2026
"It's going to be expensive, and you can't do it on the cheap, so this is going to need funding from somewhere," said Maguire.
From BBC • May 6, 2026
If these companies can’t afford to build cheap phones because memory chips are too expensive, Skyworks loses the volume of chips it would have sold for those phones.
From Barron's • May 6, 2026
Best part: The clippers work for cheap, and none of the promotional aspects need to be publicly disclosed, thanks to a federal-regulation loophole that relaxes transparency standards on ads that don’t sell tangible products.
From Slate • May 6, 2026
Finally he came in, and we bought a pretty good rod cheap, and two landing-nets.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
