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cheap

adj
/ˈt͡ʃiːp/

Etymology

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”), Bulgarian ку́пя (kúpja, “to purchase”), Serbo-Croatian купити (“to purchase”), Czech koupit (“to purchase”), Polish kupić (“to purchase”).

  1. derived from caupō
  2. inherited from *kaupōną✻
  3. inherited from *kaupōn✻
  4. inherited from ċēapian — “to buy, bargain, trade”
  5. inherited from chepen
  6. inherited from *kaup✻
  7. inherited from cēap — “trade, market, value”
  8. inherited from chep

Definitions

  1. Low or reduced in price.

    • Where there are many sellers and few purchases, land will be cheap.
    • Datacasting bypasses the wired, terrestrial Internet and is a cheaper way to distribute software than pressing and mailing CDs.

  2. Of poor quality.

  3. Of little worth.

    • You grow cheap in every subject's eye.
  4. ›+ 14 more definitions

    1. Underhanded or unfair.

      • the cheap trick of hiding deadly lava under pushable blocks

    2. Stingy

      Stingy; mean; excessively frugal.

      • Insurance is expensive, but don't be so cheap that you risk losing your home because of a fire.

    3. Trading at a price level which is low relative to historical trends, a similar asset, or…

      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.

    4. Taking little of system time or resources.

      • the algorithm is cheap to compute

    5. Trade

      Trade; traffic; chaffer; chaffering.

    6. A market

      A market; marketplace.

    7. Price.

    8. A low 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.

    9. Cheapness

      Cheapness; lowness of price; abundance of supply.

    10. To trade

      To trade; traffic; bargain; chaffer; ask the price of goods; cheapen goods.

    11. To bargain for

      To bargain for; chaffer for; ask the price of; offer a price for; cheapen.

    12. To buy

      To buy; purchase.

    13. To sell.

    14. Cheaply.

      • I bought this cheap in a junk shop.
      • The pet shop has some budgerigars going cheap.
      • March 24 1658, John Milton, letter to Emeric Bigot I need not request you to purchase them as cheap as possible

The neighborhood

Derived

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 · +16 more

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at cheap. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01cheap02price03worth04deserving05desert06vegetation07growing08growth09economic

A definitional loop anchored at cheap. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at cheap

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA