cheap

      English

      Pronunciation

      Alternative forms

      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 caupo (“tradesman, innkeeper, huckster”), cauponari (“to traffic, trade”), caupo (“tradesman, inn-keeper”), from Proto-Indo-European *kaup-, *ḱaup-, *kwap-, *ḱwap- (“merchant”), related to Ancient Greek κάπηλος (kápēlos, “huckster”). 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”), Finnish kauppa (“shop”).

      Noun

      cheap (plural cheaps)

      1. Trade; traffic; chaffer; chaffering.
      2. A market; marketplace.
      3. Price.
      4. A low price; a bargain.
        a good cheap
      5. Cheapness; lowness of price; abundance of supply.

      Adjective

      cheap (comparative cheaper, superlative cheapest)

      1. Low and/or reduced in price.
        • 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, 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.
      2. Of poor quality.
      3. Of little worth.
        • 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
      terms derived from cheap
      See also
      Translations
      low in price
      reduced in price
      of poor quality
      of little worth
      slang unfairly powerful
      frugal, stingy
      The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
      Translations to be checked

      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.

      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

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      Irish

      Pronunciation

      Noun

      cheap m

      1. Mutated form of ceap.

      Verb

      cheap m

      1. Mutated form of ceap.
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      Last modified on 18 June 2013, at 15:40