cheap

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   relatively low in price or charging low prices

   it would have been cheap at twice the price

2. 2
   adj

   Low or reduced in price.

   Where there are many sellers and few purchases, land will be cheap.

3. 3
   adj

   Of little worth.

   You grow cheap in every subject's eye.

4. 4
   adj

   Underhanded or unfair.

   the cheap trick of hiding deadly lava under pushable blocks

5. 5
   adj

   Stingy; mean; excessively frugal.

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

6. 6
   adj

   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.

7. 7
   adj

   Taking little of system time or resources.

   the algorithm is cheap to compute

8. 8
   noun

   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.

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”…