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Cheapen   /tʃˈipən/   Listen
Cheapen

verb
(past & past part. cheapened; pres. part. cheapening)
1.
Lower the grade of something; reduce its worth.  Synonym: degrade.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cheapen" Quotes from Famous Books



... whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever, but is here stirring and afoot. It is the synod of all parts politic, jointed and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the Parliament. It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the legends of Popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not a few ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... then recollecting, he began, "Stay, let me see, at Nicolas Graeke's, the inn at the castle, there are two great Dutch merchants, Dieterich von Pehnen and Jacob Kiekebusch, who are come to buy pitch and boards, item, timber for ships and beams; perchance they may like to cheapen your amber too; but you had better go up to the castle yourself, for I do not know for certain whether they still are there." This I did, although I had not yet eaten anything in the man's house, seeing that I wanted to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... by Mr. Lloyd George to the electors in 1918. Schemes were ready, and are still in the official pigeon-holes, for the production of electricity on a very large scale both from water power and from coal, which would not only provide employment, but cheapen the cost of production in all our industries. France, Italy, and other countries are at this moment carrying out similar schemes whereby they will relieve themselves to a large extent from dependence ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... twenty-one years old, who had resided six months in the State and who had within one year paid taxes or a road assessment, or had been enrolled and served in the militia. Although, said Van Buren, this report is on the verge of universal suffrage, it did not cheapen the invaluable right, by conferring it indiscriminately upon every one, black or white, who would condescend to accept it. He was opposed, he said, to a precipitate and unexpected prostration of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... you are to understand that you are 'personally conducted' in your new field, and I am your manager. It won't do to cheapen your work by putting a small price on it. Make 'em pay, and they will think that ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... outside. "We have made the men take an interest in the women," say the employers. "That is the secret of our success. We care nothing at all about the money, we are all for the output. If the men think you are going to exploit women and cheapen the work, the ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... proposal; which, however, the Commons (moved thereto by seagreen Robespierre) dexterously accept as a sort of hint, or even pledge, that the Clergy will forthwith come over to them, constitute the States-General, and so cheapen grains! (Bailly, Memoires, i. 114.)—Finally, on the 27th day of May, Mirabeau, judging the time now nearly come, proposes that 'the inertia cease;' that, leaving the Noblesse to their own stiff ways, the Clergy ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... go on just the same and wait until they're ready for you?" asked Susan, laughing from sheer pride in him. "You'll never, never cheapen yourself, Oliver?" For the first time in her life she was face to face with an intellectual passion, and she felt almost as if she ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... behind its dark counter as in a robbers' den, and seeing through the open door of the parlour at the back of the shop my mother knitting at her window and the green trees of the garden. I liked, too, the folds of sober cloth and coloured prints, and the faces of folk when they came in to buy or cheapen. Even the jangle of the bell that clattered at the shop door when we put it to at meal times pleased my ears, and has sounded there many times since and softly in places thousands of miles away from the Main Street. I do not know how or why, but the cling-clang of that bell ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... simplest character. Now a book-factory is filled with heavy machines of the most complicated kind, which in many cases feed themselves from stocks of material placed upon them. New machines are constantly being invented to cheapen and perfect the manufacture. Thus a very large investment of capital is now required to set up and maintain a plant which can produce books economically and with perfect finish in every part. Books are seldom manufactured in ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail

... the flood comes down, Threatening with deluge this devoted town. To shops in crowds the dangled females fly, Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy. The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach, Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach. The tuck'd-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various

... from that again he goes on to tell how the Prince of princes Himself went at one time through this same fair, and that upon a fair day too, and how the lord of the fair himself came and took Him from street to street to try to get Him induced to cheapen and buy some of the vain merchandise. But as it turned out He had no mind to the merchandise in question, and He therefore passed through the town without laying out so much as one farthing upon its vanities. The fair, therefore, you will see, ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... beginning of a life and culture totally unrelated to anything we know. What will it be like? Where should houses be built—and will they be built? A housewife can have her dining-room in the mountains and her kitchen in a community (to simplify and cheapen plumbing, etc.) 10,000 miles away, or on another planet! There can be no national boundaries, of course. What happens to the multiplicity of languages? What happens to government? How do you catch a criminal? How ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey

... other opportunity to light upon us than in the very thick of our wrestle with the extortionate prices of fresh kuruma. It was inconsiderate of them, to say the least; for the attack naturally threw us into a certain disrepute not calculated to cheapen fares. Then, too, our obvious haste helped furnish circumstantial evidence of ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... plain work can't be imitated or replaced by anything just as good, and because your request for a job for Courtland Warrington naturally brings them up. You write that Court says that a man who has occupied his position in the world naturally can't cheapen himself by stepping down into any little piddling job where he'd have ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... aneroid barometer furnishes a hint for another convenient form of small steam-engine. In seeking to cheapen machinery of this class it is of the utmost importance that the necessity for boring out cylinders and for planing and other expensive work should be avoided. In the aneroid barometer a shallow circular box is fitted with a cover, which ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland



Words linked to "Cheapen" :   devaluate, devalue, exasperate, aggravate, exacerbate, worsen



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