cheapie

American  

[chee-pee] / ˈtʃi pi /

Or cheapy

noun

1. a cheaply made, often inferior, product.

   The movie studio made a dozen cheapies last year.

2. any item that is inexpensive as compared with others of its kind.

   All brands of margarine taste alike to me, so I buy a cheapie.

3. a stingy or miserly person.

   That cheapie wouldn't buy anyone a gift!

---

adjective

1. of, being, or pertaining to a cheap or inferior product.

   cheapie shoes.

2. stingy; miserly.

Etymology

Origin of cheapie

First recorded in 1940–45; cheap + -ie

Example Sentences

Both losses came at home, with the Kraken not managing a third-period shot Monday until Adam Larsson put a cheapie on goal from the other end of the rink with 97 seconds to play.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 14, 2023

The film exists in an idiosyncratic world that feels like an exacting re-creation of a late-’60s/early ’70s low-budget movie but with a sharp, contemporary feminist point-of-view that would never be found in some period exploitation cheapie.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 11, 2016

In the year since, I set out to understand what made his cheapie formula work and how he convinces his directors to pinch pennies.

From Slate • Jan. 7, 2016

In the early 1960s, Mr. Golan worked — alongside Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Towne — for Roger Corman on “The Young Racers,” a cheapie about European car racers.

From New York Times • Feb. 18, 2015

The back half collapses first, a cheapie addition that's fifty years younger than the rest of the place.

From Shadow of the Mothaship by Doctorow, Cory