cheap at half the price
- idiom
- Informal
:
una ganga
- Their lunch special is cheap at half the price, making it popular among students.
Examples
-
The concert tickets were cheap at half the price, considering the quality of the performance.
-
For the amount of features included, this software is cheap at half the price.
-
This sofa is cheap at half the price!
-
You won't find a better deal; it's cheap at half the price.
-
The concert tickets were cheap at half the price, considering the quality of the performance.
-
For the amount of features included, this software is cheap at half the price.
-
Their lunch special is cheap at half the price, making it popular among students.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Costing little money compared with similar things
1
3.2
Sold for a lower price than usual
Antonyms
How Cheap
∞
1.0
- Informal
14
2.8
- Informal
170
1.0
86
1.0
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
cheap + at + half + the + price
The words 'cheap', 'half' and 'price' clearly signal a relation to cost, but the full sense — an ironic/hyperbolic formula meaning 'this is a real bargain even relative to a lower price' — depends on a conventional evaluative pattern rather than straightforward composition. A B1 learner who knows the constituents will sense the domain (price/value) but is unlikely to predict the emphatic, idiomatic force of the expression without prior exposure.
Etymology
Cheap at half the price may come from market talk where a seller wanted to show an item was such a good buy that it would still be cheap even at half the price, creating the image of a deal too good to miss. That's why today we use it to mean 'a real bargain'.