Word.ws English Dictionary

playing it cheap

playing it cheap is the present participle of play it cheap.

Meaning of play it cheap

Verb

play it cheap (third-person singular simple present plays it cheap, present participle playing it cheap, simple past and past participle played it cheap)

  1. (idiomatic, informal, uncommon) To be frugal or stingy.
    • With blind eagerness, judged by subsequent action and indifference, our Government seems to have essayed to play the part of philanthropist, guide, and friend, but to "play it cheap", as if phrases could alter facts, or high-sounds declarations could complete, in a moment, what centuries elsewhere...1885, John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen, Proceedings of the Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen, page 11

Questions about playing it cheap

What is playing it cheap the present participle of?
Playing it cheap is the present participle of play it cheap.

Words near playing it cheap in the dictionary

  1. playing in Peoria
  2. playing into someone's hand
  3. playing into someone's hands
  4. playing into the hand of
  5. playing into the hands of
  6. playing it cheap
  7. playing it close to the hip
  8. playing it cool
  9. playing it for all it's worth
  10. playing it pear-shaped
  11. playing it safe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: playing it cheap (page history and authors); play it cheap (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.

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