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PlainSpell

cheap

/ˈt͡ʃiːp/adjective

cheap is spelled C-H-E-A-P: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 51 times per million words in written English, the 1,993rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “cheap vs cheep” about 320 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, cheap means “Low or reduced in price” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in cheap?

Letters5: C-H-E-A-P
Syllables1
In writing51 times per million words; the 1,993rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is cheap?

Cheap appears 51 times per million words in written English, the 1,993rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce cheap?

  • /ˈt͡ʃiːp/
  • [ˈt͡ʃʰɪi̯p]

Cheap has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-cheap.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with cheap

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

cheap vs cheep320 G

Sounds like: cheep (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with cheap?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as cheap.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: peach, chape.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of cheap

  • cheaper comparative
  • cheapest superlative
  • ch3ap
  • cheaps present, singular, he/she/it
  • cheaping participle, present
  • cheaped participle, past
  • more cheap comparative
  • most cheap superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does cheap mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Low or reduced in price.

  2. 2

    Of poor quality.

    a writer of cheap romances

  3. 3

    Of little worth.

  4. 4

    slangUnderhanded or unfair.

    the cheap trick of hiding deadly lava under pushable blocks

  5. 5

    derogatoryinformalStingy; mean; excessively frugal.

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

  6. 6

    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

    Taking little of system time or resources.

    the algorithm is cheap to compute

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteTrade; traffic; chaffer; chaffering.

  2. 2

    obsoleteA market; marketplace.

  3. 3

    obsoletePrice.

  4. 4

    obsoleteA low price; a bargain.

  5. 5

    obsoleteCheapness; lowness of price; abundance of supply.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo trade; traffic; bargain; chaffer; ask the price of goods; cheapen goods.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo bargain for; chaffer for; ask the price of; offer a price for; cheapen.

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo buy; purchase.

  4. 4

    obsoleteTo sell.

adverb

  1. 1

    obsoleteCheaply.

    I bought this cheap in a junk shop.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Cheap in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchbon marché, pas cher, peu cher, économique (low and/or reduced in price), à deux balles, au rabais (of poor quality)
Germanbillig, preiswert, preisgünstig (low and/or reduced in price), geizig (frugal, stingy)
Portuguesebarato, barateado (low and/or reduced in price), vil, reles (of little worth)
Spanishbarato, económico (low and/or reduced in price), corriente, chimbo, chafa (of poor quality)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cheap come from?

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.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after cheap