cheap
/ˈt͡ʃiːp/
cheap adjective: low or reduced in price.
Adjective
cheap (comparative cheaper, superlative cheapest)
- Low or reduced in price.
- Where there are many sellers and few purchases, land will be cheap.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
- 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...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- inexpensive, affordable, bargain, good value
- Antonyms:
- expensive, dear, costly, pricey, 5-star, big-ticket, chargeful, cheap at half the price, costful, cost-prohibitive
- Of poor quality.
- a writer of cheap romances
- Synonyms:
- low-quality, shoddy, ass, bad, base, below par, bottom-shelf, BTEC, bum, cheap and nasty
- Of little worth.
- You grow cheap in every subject's eye.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
- Underhanded or unfair.
- the cheap trick of hiding deadly lava under pushable blocks
- Stingy; mean; excessively frugal.
- Insurance is expensive, but don't be so cheap that you risk losing your home because of a fire.
- Trading at a price level which is low relative to historical trends, a similar asset, or (for derivatives) a theoretical value.
- The ETF is trading cheap to NAV right now; we can arb this by buying the ETF and selling the underlying constituents.
- Synonyms:
- undervalued, underpriced
- Antonyms:
- rich, overvalued, overpriced
- Taking little of system time or resources.
- the algorithm is cheap to compute
Noun
cheap (countable and uncountable, plural cheaps)
- Trade; traffic; chaffer; chaffering.
- A market; marketplace.
- Price.
- A low price; a bargain.
- The sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- Cheapness; lowness of price; abundance of supply.
Verb
cheap (third-person singular simple present cheaps, present participle cheaping, simple past and past participle cheaped)
Adverb
cheap (comparative more cheap, superlative most cheap)
- Cheaply.
- I bought this cheap in a junk shop.
- The pet shop has some budgerigars going cheap.
cheap meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
cheap in Hindi
- low and/or reduced in price
- सस्ता sastā
- of poor quality
- निम्नगुणवत्ता nimnaguṇvattā
- frugal, stingy
- कंजूस kañjūs
cheap in Tamil
- low and/or reduced in price
- மலிவான malivāṉa
- of poor quality
- தரம் குறைந்த taram kuṟainta
cheap in Marathi
- low and/or reduced in price
- स्वस्त svasta
cheap in Urdu
- low and/or reduced in price
- سستا sastā, ارزاں arzān
More languagesFewer languages
- cheap in Bengali
- সস্তা śosta
- cheap in Telugu
- చౌక cauka, తగ్గింపు ధర taggimpu dhara, తక్కువ రకం takkuva rakaṁ, స్వల్ప లాభం svalpa lābhaṁ
- cheap in Malayalam
- ചീപ്പ് cīppŭ, കുറഞ്ഞ kuṟañña
- cheap in Kannada
- ಅಗ್ಗ, ಇಳಿಬೆಲೆ, ಇಕ್ಕಲು, ಉರಟಿ
- cheap in Punjabi
- ਸਸਤਾ sastā, سولا savallā
- cheap in Gujarati
- સસ્તું sastũ, સોંઘું soṅghũ
- cheap in Odia
- ଶସ୍ତା śastā
- cheap in Sanskrit
- अल्पमूल्य alpamūlya, न्यूनमूल्य nyūnamūlya
- cheap in Sinhala
- බාල bāla, ලාභ lābha
- cheap in Nepali
- सस्तो sasto, सुलभ sulabh
- cheap in Pashto
- ارزان arzân
- cheap in Tagalog
- mura
- cheap in Arabic
- رَخِيص raḵīṣ
- cheap in Malay
- murah
- cheap in Indonesian
- murah, murahan
- cheap in Persian
- ارزان arzân, مفت moft
- cheap in Thai
- ถูก tùuk
- cheap in Vietnamese
- rẻ
- cheap in Myanmar
- သက်သာ saksa, ဈေးချို jhe:hkyui, ပေါ pau:
Examples of cheap in a sentence
- Datacasting bypasses the wired, terrestrial Internet and is a cheaper way to distribute software than pressing and mailing CDs.2000, George Abe, Residential Broadband, Cisco Systems, →ISBN:
- The cheapest antiager around: a good moisturizer.2008, Amy Wechsler, The Mind-Beauty Connection, page 31:
- Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid.2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 12 Mar 2023:
- McDonald’s has been vocal about adding more chicken to its menu, which is generally cheaper than beef.2024 October 3, Jordan Valinsky, “McDonald’s is finally selling the Chicken Big Mac in the US”, in CNN Business, archived from the original...
Synonyms of cheap
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
10 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of cheap
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | cheaper |
| superlative | cheapest |
| alternative form | ch3ap |
| alternative form (dialectal) | chap |
| alternative form (dialectal) | chop |
| Noun | |
| plural | cheaps |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cheaps |
| present participle | cheaping |
| past participle | cheaped |
| past | cheaped |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more cheap |
| superlative | most cheap |
Origin of cheap
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”)...
Words formed from cheap
- 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
- cheap fake
- 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 cheap
- 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
- cheap out
Phrases with cheap
- goes cheap
- gone cheap
- held cheap
- went cheap
- cheap dates
- cheap fakes
- cheap Johns
- cheap shots
- going cheap
- holds cheap
- cheap drunks
- cheap skates
30 more phrasesFewer phrases
- cheap tricks
- cheap thrills
- holding cheap
- cheap Charlies
- cheap trippers
- plays it cheap
- played it cheap
- playing it cheap
- lied like a cheap rug
- lies like a cheap rug
- lying like a cheap rug
- folds like a cheap suit
- folds like a cheap tent
- lied like a cheap watch
- lies like a cheap watch
- folded like a cheap suit
- folded like a cheap tent
- lying like a cheap watch
- plays to the cheap seats
- folding like a cheap suit
- folding like a cheap tent
- played to the cheap seats
- playing to the cheap seats
- folds like a cheap suitcase
- pile it high, sell it cheap
- folded like a cheap suitcase
- you buy cheap, you get cheap
- folding like a cheap suitcase
- pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap
- good work ain't cheap, cheap work ain't good
Words that rhyme with cheap
Questions about cheap
- What does cheap mean?
- Cheap means low or reduced in price.
- What is cheap in Hindi?
- Cheap in Hindi is सस्ता (sastā), निम्नगुणवत्ता (nimnaguṇvattā), कंजूस (kañjūs). See Cheap meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use cheap in a sentence?
- Datacasting bypasses the wired, terrestrial Internet and is a cheaper way to distribute software than pressing and mailing CDs.
- What part of speech is cheap?
- Cheap can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce cheap?
- Cheap is pronounced /ˈt͡ʃiːp/.
Words near cheap in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cheap (page history and authors); കുറഞ്ഞ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); cheap (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); سولا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ଶସ୍ତା (Odia) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-cheap.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cheap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cheap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.