1
a
: charging or obtainable at a low price
a good cheap hotel
cheap tickets
b
: purchasable below the going price or the real value
c
: depreciated in value (as by currency inflation)
cheap dollars
2
3
: gained or done with little effort
a cheap victory
talk is cheap
4
of money
: obtainable at a low rate of interest
: for little cost : cheaply
was able to buy it cheap
"It all seems to centre round that bust of Napoleon which I bought for this very room about four months ago. I picked it up cheap from Harding Brothers, two doors from the High Street Station."—
Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
obsolete
: bargain see also for cheap, on the cheap
Synonyms
Examples of cheap in a Sentence
Adjective
I always buy the cheapest brand of cereal.
curtains made of cheap material
He wears a cheap watch that's always breaking.
This gas station is cheaper than the one by the highway.
Don't be cheap—buy good quality tires for your car.
Recent Examples on the WebPueng Vongs, The Mercury News, 19 Apr. 2024
There were peanut galleries in all the great 19th century European opera houses, and there have been cheap seats ever since.
—Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2024
Last week, another longtime Tesla bull, Wedbush’s Dan Ives, wrote that the road map for fully autonomous vehicles was too far in the future, and investor appetite for Tesla shares may wane in the meantime if plans for a cheap car are scrapped.
—Ryan Hogg, Fortune Europe, 19 Apr. 2024
Most tickets are priced are anywhere from $1,500 to almost $3,000 each, and the cheapest tickets are for seats near the top of the bowl.
—Katie Wiseman, The Indianapolis Star, 19 Apr. 2024
The company’s stock has seen a precipitous decline this year, as competition from China heats up and plans for a cheaper electric vehicle have apparently been scrapped in favor of an all-in push for robotaxis.
—Brian Barrett, WIRED, 19 Apr. 2024
President Biden’s trillion-dollar effort to invigorate American manufacturing and speed a transition to cleaner energy sources is colliding with a surge of cheap exports from China, threatening to wipe out the investment and jobs that are central to Mr. Biden’s economic agenda.
—Alan Rappeport, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2024
Apple Meanwhile, competition from cheap imports is undercutting prices for their produce, without having to meet the same standards.
—Raf Casert, Quartz, 18 Apr. 2024
Meanwhile, youth unemployment is at record highs while price-conscious consumers are forcing investment away from more premium brands toward cheaper alternatives.
—Eleanor Pringle, Fortune, 8 Apr. 2024
Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, 29 Jan. 2024
So, now is not the time to go cheap on the FBI or the Department of Defense.
—ABC News, 24 Dec. 2023
Wall Street complains because higher rates add risk to otherwise painless ways to make gobs of money by borrowing cheap and lending long.
—Scott Burns, Dallas News, 29 Aug. 2023
Musk ultimately wants to make space travel cheap enough that even Average Joes can access the cosmos—or Mars.
—Lauren Sigfusson, Discover Magazine, 20 Feb. 2018
But flying cheap doesn’t matter much if there isn’t anywhere good to fly.
—Alexandra Skores, Dallas News, 13 Apr. 2023
Low interest rates put in place to support the economy after the Great Recession made borrowing cheap and pushed investors to seek out higher returns from riskier companies, spurring financing and growth for tech companies.
—Joe Rennison Eli Murray, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2023
Lemieux was on the ice to hoist it, receiving only a two-game suspension for cheap-shotting Draper.
—Viv Bernstein, Detroit Free Press, 29 May 2021
The tree was usually found on land that had been given away or sold cheap by the federal government—and then had to be repurchased at very high cost.
—Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Review of Books, 2 Mar. 2023
Adjective
Here are the cheapest gas stations to fill up in the South Bay right now, according to GasBuddy.com.
$4.89 a gallon
Poppy
801 N Fair Oaks Ave.
—Pueng Vongs, The Mercury News, 19 Apr. 2024
There were peanut galleries in all the great 19th century European opera houses, and there have been cheap seats ever since.
—Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2024
Last week, another longtime Tesla bull, Wedbush’s Dan Ives, wrote that the road map for fully autonomous vehicles was too far in the future, and investor appetite for Tesla shares may wane in the meantime if plans for a cheap car are scrapped.
—Ryan Hogg, Fortune Europe, 19 Apr. 2024
Most tickets are priced are anywhere from $1,500 to almost $3,000 each, and the cheapest tickets are for seats near the top of the bowl.
—Katie Wiseman, The Indianapolis Star, 19 Apr. 2024
The company’s stock has seen a precipitous decline this year, as competition from China heats up and plans for a cheaper electric vehicle have apparently been scrapped in favor of an all-in push for robotaxis.
—Brian Barrett, WIRED, 19 Apr. 2024
President Biden’s trillion-dollar effort to invigorate American manufacturing and speed a transition to cleaner energy sources is colliding with a surge of cheap exports from China, threatening to wipe out the investment and jobs that are central to Mr. Biden’s economic agenda.
—Alan Rappeport, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2024
Apple Meanwhile, competition from cheap imports is undercutting prices for their produce, without having to meet the same standards.
—Raf Casert, Quartz, 18 Apr. 2024
Meanwhile, youth unemployment is at record highs while price-conscious consumers are forcing investment away from more premium brands toward cheaper alternatives.
—Eleanor Pringle, Fortune, 8 Apr. 2024
Adverb
As with drones, militants used cheap, often off-the-shelf materials to build weapons that exploited a Pentagon vulnerability.
—Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, 29 Jan. 2024
So, now is not the time to go cheap on the FBI or the Department of Defense.
—ABC News, 24 Dec. 2023
Wall Street complains because higher rates add risk to otherwise painless ways to make gobs of money by borrowing cheap and lending long.
—Scott Burns, Dallas News, 29 Aug. 2023
Musk ultimately wants to make space travel cheap enough that even Average Joes can access the cosmos—or Mars.
—Lauren Sigfusson, Discover Magazine, 20 Feb. 2018
But flying cheap doesn’t matter much if there isn’t anywhere good to fly.
—Alexandra Skores, Dallas News, 13 Apr. 2023
Low interest rates put in place to support the economy after the Great Recession made borrowing cheap and pushed investors to seek out higher returns from riskier companies, spurring financing and growth for tech companies.
—Joe Rennison Eli Murray, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2023
Lemieux was on the ice to hoist it, receiving only a two-game suspension for cheap-shotting Draper.
—Viv Bernstein, Detroit Free Press, 29 May 2021
The tree was usually found on land that had been given away or sold cheap by the federal government—and then had to be repurchased at very high cost.
—Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Review of Books, 2 Mar. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cheap.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Cheap.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheap. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.
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