cheap
- 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.
- at a low price; at small cost: He is willing to sell cheap.
- 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, Informal. inexpensively; economically: She enjoys traveling on the cheap.
Origin of cheap
Synonyms
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comSynonym study
Antonyms
Related Words
low-costreasonablelow-pricedcompetitiveeconomicalpoorbaddirtytightbargainbudgetbuyirregularmoderatenominalreducedsalestandardstealutilityExamples from the Web for cheapest
Contemporary Examples
"They are the cheapest thing on the market and they are what has been offered," he says.
In fact, it takes more than $48,000 a year just to live sustainably in the cheapest parts of the United States.
Riahi kept smiling and chain-smoking Cristal cigarettes, the cheapest Tunisian brand.
The cheapest countries to fly to, Seaney says, will be Germany, Ireland, and Spain.
While I prefer having all my books on one light device, e-books are still not the cheapest option in every case.
Historical Examples
They are certainly the best and cheapest vehicles in the world.
A Woman IntervenesRobert Barr
Will you please tell me which road is the cheapest to travel on?
Four Girls and a CompactAnnie Hamilton Donnell
Take flounders or almost any flat fish that is cheapest at the time you require them.
Culture and CookingCatherine Owen
Those whose construction is most simple, and which of course are the cheapest, are beyond comparison the best on all accounts.
Well, well, this was making himself a little the cheapest he had ever let himself be made.
Dr. SevierGeorge W. Cable
cheap
- costing relatively little; inexpensive; good value
- charging low pricesa cheap hairdresser
- of poor quality; shoddycheap furniture; cheap and nasty
- worth relatively littlepromises are cheap
- not worthy of respect; vulgar
- ashamed; embarrassedto feel cheap
- stingy; miserly
- informal mean; despicablea cheap liar
- cheap as chips See chip (def. 11)
- dirt cheap informal extremely inexpensive
- on the cheap British informal at a low cost
- at very little cost
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for cheapest
cheap
adj.
"low in price, that may be bought at small cost," c.1500, ultimately from Old English noun ceap "traffic, a purchase," from ceapian (v.) "trade," probably from an early Germanic borrowing from Latin caupo "petty tradesman, huckster" (see chapman).
The sense evolution is from the noun meaning "a barter, a purchase" to "a purchase as rated by the buyer," hence adjectival meaning "inexpensive," the main modern sense, via Middle English phrases such as god chep "favorable bargain" (12c., a translation of French a bon marché).
Sense of "lightly esteemed, common" is from 1590s (cf. similar evolution of Latin vilis). The meaning "low in price" was represented in Old English by undeor, literally "un-dear" (but deop ceap, literally "deep cheap," meant "high price").
The word also was used in Old English for "market" (cf. ceapdæg "market day"), a sense surviving in place names Cheapside, East Cheap, etc. Related: Cheaply. Expression on the cheap is first attested 1888. Cheap shot originally was U.S. football jargon for a head-on tackle; extended sense "unfair hit" in politics, etc. is by 1970. German billig "cheap" is from Middle Low German billik, originally "fair, just," with a sense evolution via billiger preis "fair price," etc.
Idioms and Phrases with cheapest
cheap
In addition to the idioms beginning with cheap
- cheap at twice the price
- cheap shot
- cheap skate
also see:
- dirt cheap
- on the cheap