Careful Words

cheap (adj.)

  The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797): Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331.

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;

And they have kept it since by being dead.

John Dryden (1631-1701): The Conquest of Granada. Epilogue.

  'T is as cheap sitting as standing.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.