cheapie

American  

[chee-pee] / ˈtʃi pi /

Or cheapy

noun

1. a cheaply made, often inferior, product.

   The movie studio made a dozen cheapies last year.

2. any item that is inexpensive as compared with others of its kind.

   All brands of margarine taste alike to me, so I buy a cheapie.

3. a stingy or miserly person.

   That cheapie wouldn't buy anyone a gift!

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adjective

1. of, being, or pertaining to a cheap or inferior product.

   cheapie shoes.

2. stingy; miserly.

Etymology

Origin of cheapie

First recorded in 1940–45; cheap + -ie

Example Sentences

The Peel call was a cheapie — admittedly invented out of nowhere.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 27, 2021

The film exists in an idiosyncratic world that feels like an exacting re-creation of a late-’60s/early ’70s low-budget movie but with a sharp, contemporary feminist point-of-view that would never be found in some period exploitation cheapie.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 11, 2016

The $5m cheapie now sits with $35m in ten days.

From Forbes • Nov. 2, 2014

—The frustratingly tiny scraps of that talking-head interview in which Brad Pitt recalls with still-fascinated fondness the first movie he ever remembers seeing, the mid-’60s Japanese horror cheapie The War of the Gargantuas.

From Slate • Feb. 27, 2012

The back half collapses first, a cheapie addition that's fifty years younger than the rest of the place.

From Shadow of the Mothaship by Doctorow, Cory