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

1. 1.1 Charging low prices.
   a cheap restaurant

   Example sentencesExamples

   • These places aren't cheap, but the quality is outstanding.
   • That evening I bought a dinner in a cheap restaurant near the lodging house.
   • 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.
   • We all ran and hid in this cheap motel's restaurant.
   • Soon she has a job at a service station and a cheap place to stay.
   • It's not a cheap restaurant, and nor does it need to be.
   • Its restaurants were good and cheap and its pubs overpopulated.
   • He researched the building they would be breaking into, and he found a cheap hotel near there.
   • Some coffee shops and cheap restaurants were open, and even the city's double-decker public buses were moving in very light traffic.
   • 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.
   • The restaurants were cheap, wonderfully varied, and within walking distance.
   • That pizza restaurant is pretty cheap, and they have good pizza.
   • Then there is the country's woeful provision of cheap, child-friendly restaurants.
   • This cheap and chic restaurant is run by an Hiberno-Spanish family who boast Spain and Denmark among their former homes.
   • There are high class fine dining restaurants, ethnic restaurants, cheap restaurants and family restaurants.
   • By the shore there are renowned restaurants, while the street is lined with cheap cafes and second-hand shops.
   • The road takes in long deserted beaches, paddy fields, avenues of trees and various cheap hotels and restaurants.
   • The pier is lined with excellent cheap restaurants, the fish visible in the sea beneath.
   • Here you will find fantastic Indian restaurants, the best being the Punjab, friendly cheap pubs and encounter the sub culture.
2. 1.2 Inexpensive because of inferior quality.
   cheap, shoddy goods

   Example sentencesExamples

   • That is, that it's providing cheap labor instead of quality, but more expensive labor.
   • 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.
   • 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.
   • Or they propose cheap, inferior roof systems, install them, get paid and disappear when the problems start.
   • He said the agency had to carefully examine the quality of cheap meat to decide whether it was safe for human consumption.
   • 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.
   • 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.
   • Well, the deliberate contamination of food materials with low quality, cheap, non-edible or toxic substances is called food adulteration.
   • 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.
   • 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.
   • This is clearly an attempt to get money out of people for a cheap service.
   • There was a time when it was easy to spot a fake: misspelled logos, cheap leather and shoddy hardware.
   • 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.
   • It's expensive, but worth it to avoid the mistakes that mark out a cheap, amateurish video from a slick corporate one.
   • Okay, it's cheap, but the quality is so poor that you generally only get a couple of wears from it.
   • 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.

   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
3. 1.3North American informal Miserly; stingy.
   she's too cheap to send me a postcard

   Example sentencesExamples

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

   Synonyms

   miserly, niggardly, close-fisted, parsimonious, penny-pinching, cheese-paring, ungenerous, penurious, illiberal, close, grasping, greedy, avaricious, acquisitive, scrooge-like
4. 1.4 Of little worth because achieved in a discreditable way requiring little effort.
   her moment of cheap triumph

   Example sentencesExamples

   • 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.
   • The cheap thrills aren't worth the self-inflicted lobotomy one must perform to enjoy them.
   • And the Government has lashed out at the Opposition for airing the criticisms, accusing them of trying to score cheap political points.
   • 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.’
   • Online study does not mean cheap and low quality.
   • Finally he did achieve a cheap tabloid immortality, but this CD won't raise his status.
   • 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.
   • ‘I am disappointed that they view Bolton's transport plans as nothing more than a cheap political gimmick,’ he said.
   • Most of them are using that trick for cheap laughs, while he earned those laughs the hard way.
   • 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.

   Synonyms

   despicable, contemptible, low, base, immoral, unscrupulous, unprincipled, unsavoury, distasteful, unpleasant, mean, shabby, sordid, vulgar, tawdry, low-minded, dishonourable, discreditable, ignoble, sorry, shameful
5. 1.5 Deserving of contempt.
   a cheap trick

   Example sentencesExamples

   • 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.
   • 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?
   • She deserves and should expect nothing but ridicule for this newest cheap trick.
   • Why do entertainers indulge in such cheap tricks in the first place?
   • Even the writers themselves fall victim to the cheap trick.
   • It uses cheap narrative tricks to skip ahead to a pivotal moment in the tale.
   • Those in the property management departments of the architects feel they have been blinded by a cheap trick.
   • Since his elevation, he has resorted to cheap populism in an effort to win back disaffected working class voters.
   • Well, we have to admit that we lied about that - it was a cheap trick to keep you reading.
   • And no, a filmmaker doesn't need to resort to cheap tricks and melodrama to tell the story.
   • 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?
   • Which, if you think about it, is a cheap and irresponsible 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.
   • 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.
   • Luckily for its readers, this newspaper would never fall for such cheap tricks.
   • He's his own man, doesn't compromise his principles to achieve cheap popularity, but sticks to his guns.
   • It's a cheap shot: Send your difficult client off to the shrinks and never see him again.
   • 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.
   • Did the rather cheap quality of the cartoons leave an impression as he read the scripts?
   • It's also worth noting the cheap shot thrown at the State Department's intelligence agency, which actually has a very good track record.

   Synonyms

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

At or for a low price.