💸 Very cheaply 💸 Very cheaply

for a song

5.3

It costs very little

idiom

Informal

: por una ganga

When the opportunity came to buy a major part of that partnership for a song, Buffett, always interested in good value and good teams to run the companies he purchases, moved very quickly.

Examples

You can find great clothes at that thrift store, often for a song.
If the idea worked, the value of Mega-Metals' investment would plummet, and the settlers would be able to buy the other half of the planet for a song and live happily ever after.

Fiction book (1991)
Marathon's shares jumped on the news that it had snapped up the country's third-biggest refinery for a song, but part of the discount no doubt includes the cost of the plant's fatal legacy.

Blog text (30)
I managed to get this antique vase for a song at the flea market.
They sold their old car for a song before moving to a new city.

Synonyms

for a bargain price

vsfor a song

1 2.7

At a much lower price than usual

states a very small amount without implying surprise or comparison

Antonyms

expensively

5 3.2

In a way that costs a lot of money

How Cheap

for free

450 1.0

dirt cheap

Informal

14 2.8

for a song

Informal

5.3

cheaply

40 1.0

affordably

2 3.2

Surface Forms

for a song positive

Morphology

for + a + song

The sense 'very cheaply' does not follow from the literal meanings of 'for' + 'a' + 'song' — 'song' refers to music and gives no cue about price, and the preposition/article are neutral. This is a conventionalized idiom with a historical/metaphorical origin, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the idiomatic meaning.

Etymology

For a song may come from the picture of a singer who agreed to perform for very little pay, sometimes just a meal or a few coins. If a thing was paid for with so little, people said it was bought for a song, so today the phrase means 'very cheaply'.