Definition of cheap in English:

1(of an item for sale) low in price; worth more than its cost.

1. 1.1Charging low prices.
   ‘a cheap restaurant’
   More example sentences

   • ‘Some coffee shops and cheap restaurants were open, and even the city's double-decker public buses were moving in very light traffic.’
   • ‘It's not a cheap restaurant, and nor does it need to be.’
   • ‘Its restaurants were good and cheap and its pubs overpopulated.’
   • ‘The restaurants were cheap, wonderfully varied, and within walking distance.’
   • ‘Then there is the country's woeful provision of cheap, child-friendly restaurants.’
   • ‘That evening I bought a dinner in a cheap restaurant near the lodging house.’
   • ‘The pier is lined with excellent cheap restaurants, the fish visible in the sea beneath.’
   • ‘We all ran and hid in this cheap motel's restaurant.’
   • ‘So I sat by him in this rather depressing scene, as we played poker on the wet, cement floor, in the alley of cheap restaurants and pizza places.’
   • ‘That pizza restaurant is pretty cheap, and they have good pizza.’
   • ‘There are high class fine dining restaurants, cheap restaurants and family restaurants.’
   • ‘This cheap and chic restaurant is run by an Hiberno-Spanish family who boast Spain and Denmark among their former homes.’
   • ‘The road takes in long deserted beaches, paddy fields, avenues of trees and various cheap hotels and restaurants.’
   • ‘Here you will find fantastic Indian restaurants, the best being the Punjab, friendly cheap pubs and encounter the sub culture.’
   • ‘By the shore there are renowned restaurants, while the street is lined with cheap cafes and second-hand shops.’
   • ‘Also, it was pretty cheap too, compared to some of the other restaurants I've been to lately!’
   • ‘If anything comes out of this, it's the sheer lunacy of expecting to run a cheap, universal postal service in the age of electronic mail and demanding it make a profit.’
   • ‘Soon she has a job at a service station and a cheap place to stay.’
   • ‘These places aren't cheap, but the quality is outstanding.’
   • ‘He researched the building they would be breaking into, and he found a cheap hotel near there.’
2. 1.2Inexpensive because of inferior quality.
   ‘cheap, shoddy goods’
   More example sentences

   • ‘We may well be starting to develop a taste for better coffee, but only 30 per cent of the beans we import are quality arabica, the rest being cheap, inferior robusta.’
   • ‘In addition, cheap, inferior food which floods into this country from abroad undercuts quality home produce and increases the downward pressure on farm gate prices.’
   • ‘That is, that it's providing cheap labor instead of quality, but more expensive labor.’
   • ‘He said the agency had to carefully examine the quality of cheap meat to decide whether it was safe for human consumption.’
   • ‘Okay, it's cheap, but the quality is so poor that you generally only get a couple of wears from it.’
   • ‘Well, the deliberate contamination of food materials with low quality, cheap, non-edible or toxic substances is called food adulteration.’
   • ‘Or they propose cheap, inferior roof systems, install them, get paid and disappear when the problems start.’
   • ‘Since it became a region in its own right, Montilla has had to contend with a popular image as an inferior, cheap alternative to sherry.’
   • ‘The Russian healthcare system is moving from a model based on cheap, poor quality labour to one with fewer, skilled people supported by modern technology.’
   • ‘This restaurant is really, really inexpensive. Not cheap, mind; they just don't charge much.’
   • ‘Our guys earned that reputation with decades of cheap and shoddy workmanship even as the top-tier imports were training us to expect much better.’
   • ‘There was a time when it was easy to spot a fake: misspelled logos, cheap leather and shoddy hardware.’
   • ‘A restaurant in some unknown country, cheap wood-grain paneling on the wall and a sad-faced waitress who spoke only Italian as she delivered the overcooked food to the table.’
   • ‘The area that was hit was one of Baghdad's poorest - consisting of overcrowded apartments, rundown shops and cheap restaurants.’
   • ‘It's a cheap restaurant that is degrading to woman.’
   • ‘I own several scruffy-looking fleece tops that make me feel cheap and shabby whenever I wear them, so I was on the lookout for warm and slinky knitwear to help bring out my inner fabulousness.’
   • ‘It's expensive, but worth it to avoid the mistakes that mark out a cheap, amateurish video from a slick corporate one.’
   • ‘This is clearly an attempt to get money out of people for a cheap service.’
   Synonyms

   poor-quality, second-rate, third-rate, substandard, low-grade, inferior, common, vulgar, shoddy, trashy, rubbishy, tawdry, tinny, brassy, worthless, meretricious, cheap and nasty, cheapjack, gimcrack, Brummagem, pinchbeck

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3. 1.3North American informal Miserly; stingy.
   ‘she's too cheap to send me a postcard’
   More example sentences

   • ‘The answer is they are greedy and cheap, just like the executives of the supermarket.’
   • ‘He is nothing but a cheap penny-pincher who has gone out of his way to alienate himself from Chicago fans.’
   • ‘I've got an etiquette question because I can't decide if I'm being cheap and greedy or thoroughly modern.’
   • ‘If they look cheap, in comparison, it can send the wrong message about the candidate.’
   • ‘Have you ever had the misfortune damaging one of your favorite firearms because you were too cheap to purchase a quality gun case?’
   • ‘Well, I'm so cheap I still ask the prices of things I like.’
   Synonyms

   miserly, niggardly, close-fisted, parsimonious, penny-pinching, cheese-paring, ungenerous, penurious, illiberal, close, grasping, greedy, avaricious, acquisitive, Scrooge-like

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4. 1.4Of little worth because achieved in a discreditable way requiring little effort.
   ‘her moment of cheap triumph’
   More example sentences

   • ‘Finally he did achieve a cheap tabloid immortality, but this CD won't raise his status.’
   • ‘The cheap thrills aren't worth the self-inflicted lobotomy one must perform to enjoy them.’
   • ‘It hurts, but now I just remind myself that they don't know anything about me, and that I am worth more than their cheap laughs.’
   • ‘Online study does not mean cheap and low quality.’
   • ‘Most of them are using that trick for cheap laughs, while he earned those laughs the hard way.’
   • ‘Whether it is a genuine case of the Prime Minister being paranoid, or a case of his constantly crying wolf to gain cheap political advantage or sympathy, I leave for others to decide.’
   • ‘And the Government has lashed out at the Opposition for airing the criticisms, accusing them of trying to score cheap political points.’
   • ‘It's wildly implausible, it's a cheap and uninvolving way to tell a story, and it shows the film's willingness to betray its characters for the sake of a laugh.’
   • ‘But it sounds so glib and useless and feels so cheap and cop-out just to say ‘I'm going to be a better person from now on.’’
   • ‘‘I am disappointed that they view Bolton's transport plans as nothing more than a cheap political gimmick,’ he said.’
   Synonyms

   despicable, contemptible, low, base, immoral, unscrupulous, unprincipled, unsavoury, distasteful, unpleasant, mean, shabby, sordid, vulgar, tawdry, low-minded, dishonourable, discreditable, ignoble, sorry, shameful

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5. 1.5Deserving of contempt.
   ‘a cheap trick’
   More example sentences

   • ‘She deserves and should expect nothing but ridicule for this newest cheap trick.’
   • ‘How are we supposed to teach our kids about sportsmanship and fair play if this coach constantly gets away with his cheap tricks and abusive behavior?’
   • ‘There is something strangely mesmerising about a snake-charmer's snake but, at the end of the day, you realise it is just another cheap trick.’
   • ‘I've ended up using a cheap trick - I've adopted exam papers as a structure for two of the scenarios, one based on Politics, one on Media Studies.’
   • ‘Which, if you think about it, is a cheap and irresponsible trick.’
   • ‘Even the writers themselves fall victim to the cheap trick.’
   • ‘Why do entertainers indulge in such cheap tricks in the first place?’
   • ‘And no, a filmmaker doesn't need to resort to cheap tricks and melodrama to tell the story.’
   • ‘Those in the property management departments of the architects feel they have been blinded by a cheap trick.’
   • ‘It uses cheap narrative tricks to skip ahead to a pivotal moment in the tale.’
   • ‘Well, we have to admit that we lied about that - it was a cheap trick to keep you reading.’
   • ‘Luckily for its readers, this newspaper would never fall for such cheap tricks.’
   • ‘The stripper only stayed for the first three tracks (over the course of which she took what little she was wearing off) but it set a tawdry, cheap tone for the rest of the gig.’
   • ‘Did the rather cheap quality of the cartoons leave an impression as he read the scripts?’
   • ‘It's a cheap shot: Send your difficult client off to the shrinks and never see him again.’
   • ‘It's also worth noting the cheap shot thrown at the State Department's intelligence agency, which actually has a very good track record.’
   • ‘Or is it simply easier for a struggling paper with sales in freefall to decide that a cheap headline is worth more than any kind of journalistic accuracy?’
   • ‘He's his own man, doesn't compromise his principles to achieve cheap popularity, but sticks to his guns.’
   • ‘Since his elevation, he has resorted to cheap populism in an effort to win back disaffected working class voters.’
   • ‘The singer, who had been floating on a cloud of critical success at a French label, fell down to earth with a bump when critics panned her first solo effort as vulgar and cheap.’
   Synonyms

   despicable, contemptible, low, base, immoral, unscrupulous, unprincipled, unsavoury, distasteful, unpleasant, mean, shabby, sordid, vulgar, tawdry, low-minded, dishonourable, discreditable, ignoble, sorry, shameful

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At or for a low price.