adj., cheap·er, cheap·est.
- Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.
- Charging low prices: a cheap restaurant.
- Obtainable at a low rate of interest. Used especially of money.
- Devalued, as in buying power: cheap dollars.
- Achieved with little effort: a cheap victory; cheap laughs.
- Of or considered of small value: in wartime, when life was cheap.
- Of poor quality; inferior: a cheap toy.
- Worthy of no respect; vulgar or contemptible: a cheap gangster.
- Stingy; miserly.
Inexpensively: got the new car cheap.
idioms:
cheap at twice the price
- Extremely inexpensive.
- By inexpensive means; cheaply: traveled to Europe on the cheap.
[From Middle English (god) chep, (good) price, purchase, bargain, from Old English cēap, trade, from Latin caupō, shopkeeper.]
cheaply cheap'ly adv.cheapness cheap'ness n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
