Also 6 chepe, 6–7 cheape. (A comparatively recent shortening of ‘good cheap,’ in its adjectival and adverbial uses; see prec., senses 8 and 9; not found before 16th c.]
A. adj. 1. That may be bought at small cost; bearing a relatively low price; inexpensive. Opposed to dear.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., IV. xix. Of meate and drynke there was great plenty, Nothynge I wanted, were it chepe or dere.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 24. In these Ilands, fruit is cheape and delicate.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. I. i. 8. The silks of France are better and cheaper than those of England.
1831. Blackw. Mag., Feb., 416/2. On the top of the ‘cheap and nasty,’ did you never pass through Birmingham?
1832. in C. M. Wakefield, Life T. Attwood, xiv. (1885), 231 (List of the banners … in the procession into Birmingham, May 28, 1832) Cheap Govermnent, Cheap Religion, and Cheap Bread.
1841–4. Emerson, Ess. Compensation, Wks. 1884, I. 49. Cheapest, say the prudent, is the dearest labour.
b. transf. (Applied to the price itself, the place where a commodity is sold, etc.)
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., I. i. 71 (R.). He, that is so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation, at cheape market.
1656. H. Philipps, Purch. Patt. (1670), 4. The price of money falls cheaper, and the price of Land riseth dearer.
1721. Berkeley, Prev. Ruin Gt. Brit., Wks. III. 200. Manufactures … set on foot in cheap parts of the country.
1785. Burns, Scotch Drink, xiii. The cheapest lawyer’s fee.
1838. Murray’s Hand-bk. N. Germ., 479. Heidelberg is a very cheap place of residence.
1878. B. Price, Pol. Econ., ix. To buy in the cheapest market.
Mod. Patronizing cheap shops. He is not a cheap tailor.
2. Bearing a low price in proportion to its intrinsic value; of good value in proportion to its price; well worth the price.
1611. Dekker, Roaring Girl, I. i. Wks. 1873, III. 141. Good things are most cheape, when th’ are most deere.
a. 1632. G. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1836), 141. Ill ware is never cheap.
1745. De Foe’s Eng. Tradesm., xxxviii. (1841), 109. Our manufactures may be cheap, though high-priced, if the substance be rich. Ibid., xxxvii. 100. Goods may be low-priced and not cheap.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 122. The services of a Secretary of State … well qualified for his post would have been cheap at five thousand.
3. fig. Costing little labor, trouble, effort, etc.; easily obtained.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., II. iv. 105. Twer the cheaper way. Better it were a brother dide at once, Then that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die for euer.
1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Church Porch, x. The cheap swearer through his open sluce Lets his soul runne for nought. Ibid., xii. The cheapest sinnes most dearly punisht are; Because to shun them also is so cheap.
1660. Trial Regic., 20. He thinks it as cheap to defie the Court, as Submit to it.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxvi. (1875), 435/2. The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
1885. J. Runciman, Skippers & Shellbacks, 10. My kisses ain’t cheap.
4. Involving little trouble and hence of little worth; worthless, paltry.
1571. Hanmer, Chron. Irel. (1633), 63. Take it gentle reader as cheape as you finde it.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Surv. Leviath., 22. The cheap laughter of all illiterate men.
1738. Johnson, London, 36. The cheap reward of empty praise.
1872. F. Hall, False Philology, 88, note. His cheap Latin has about the same topical relevance [etc.].
1884. Earl Grey, in 19th Cent., March, 513. To win a cheap popularity with a large class of electors.
5. Accounted of small value, made little of, lightly esteemed; esp. brought into contempt through being made too familiar.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. ii. 41. Had I so lauish of my presence beene … So stale and cheape to vulgar Company.
1612. Bacon, Ess., Ceremonies & Respects (Arb.), 29 (J.). Hee that is too much in any thing, so that hee giueth another occasion of satietie, maketh himself cheap.
1668–9. Pepys, Diary, 15 Jan. Making the king cheap and ridiculous.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 179/1. Pericles … took care not to make his person cheap among the people.
1799. in W. Jay, Mem. C. Winter (1843), 70. I would not make my company cheap.
1841–4. Emerson, Ess. Friendship, Wks. (Bohn), I. 90. Leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., I. ix. 131. I shall feel rather cheap there, after all that ’s been said and done.
b. To hold cheap: to hold of small account, think little of, despise.
1590. Shaks., Com. Err., III. i. 21. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcom deer.
1777. Priestley, Disc. Philos. Necess., 171. The works of the three Scotch writers, which you and I hold so cheap.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xi. 123. Possibly he [Cicero] held the Senate’s intellect cheap.
6. Phr. Dirt cheap: as cheap as dirt, exceedingly cheap (colloq.). So the earlier Dog cheap (colloq.). To be cheap of a thing (Sc.): not to be over-paid in respect of, to get less than one’s deserts (in the way of retribution, etc.). So to be cheap served.
1577. Holinshed, Chron., Descr. Irel., iii. They afourded their wares so doggecheape, that [etc.].
1786. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Farew. Odes to R. A., xi. And though what’s vulgarly baptiz’d a rep, Shall in a hundred pounds be deem’d dog-cheap.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxxviii. [Cumbrian loq.] She should hae been boorned aloive, an’ cheap o’t. Ibid. (1818), Br. Lamm., xii. ‘If he loses by us a’thegither, he is e’en cheap o’t.’
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, xxxvii. ‘I sold myself,’ said Mr. Bumble…. ‘I went very reasonable. Cheap, dirt cheap!’
1845. [Emma Robinson], Whitehall, II. xvii. 184. Excommunication and public penance, and cheap of it.
1860. Reade, Cloister & H., xix. Oh, let that pass: he is cheap served.
B. adverbially. At a low price, at small expense, cheaply; with little trouble, easily.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 355. If the Englishemen brenne our houses, we care little therefore, for we may soone make them againe cheape inough.
1592. Greene, Upst. Courtier, D iij a. They care not … so they buy it cheape.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonn., cx. Sold cheape what is most deare.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xxiii. § 1. 81. We got not this victorie so cheap, but that it cost seventeen mens lives.
1663. Gerbier, Counsel, 69. This work hath been done cheaper.
1699. Dampier, Voy., II. 39 (R.). Most Silk Countries are stockt with great multitudes of poor people, who work cheap and live meanly on a little Rice.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Briery Creek, iii. 59. You shall have them cheap.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., III. xxv. § 3. To sell cheaper in the foreign market.
b. Naut. (See quot.) ? Obs.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., s.v. Cable, Sometimes they say, Pay cheap the Cable, i.e. put or hand it out apace.
C. substantively in the colloquial phrase On the cheap: on the cheap scale, cheaply.
1888. Daily News, 10 Dec., 5/2. The processes cannot be both rapid and good. As a consequence the prices cannot be low; you cannot do it ‘on the cheap.’
Mod. colloq. To do his philanthropy on the cheap.
D. Comb. Cheap Jack or Cheap John, a travelling hawker who offers bargains, usually putting up his wares at an arbitrary price and then cheapening them gradually; cheap trip, a public excursion (by rail, steamer, etc.) at a specially reduced fare: see TRIP; cheap-tripper (colloq.), one who makes a cheap trip.
1826–7. in Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1310. Which Cheap John is offering for next to nothing.
1871. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., I. vi. 93 (D.). Making a sort of political Cheap Jack of himself?
1875. Chamb. Jrnl., 30 Jan., 66/1. Here a Cheap-John is retailing his rude witticisms and stale jests to induce people to purchase his Sheffield cutlery.
1858. J. Raine, Mem. J. Hodgson, II. 274, note. Mobs of cheap-trippers.
1884. J. Payn, Lit. Recoll., iv. 116. The irruption of the cheap trippers.
