"for a song" meaning in English

See for a song in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: en-au-for a song.ogg
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} for a song, {{en-PP}} for a song
  1. (idiomatic) For a very low price; very cheaply. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: for a song and a dance Translations (very cheaply): voor een habbekrats (Dutch), pilkkahintaan (Finnish), pour trois fois rien (French), pour une bouchée de pain (French), für einen Apfel und ein Ei (German), τζάμπα (tzámpa) (Greek), φθηνά (fthiná) (Greek), za bezcen (Polish), za grosze (Polish), za półdarmo (Polish), de balde (Spanish)

Alternative forms

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      "expansion": "for a song",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2009 December 11, “Jet Cemetery: Where Airplanes Go to Die”, in Businessweek",
          "text": "[T]he contents of aircraft that once commanded prices up to $148m are now being sold off for a song after being torn apart in Gloucestershire's aviation charnel house.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Kat Martin, A Song for My Mother, Vanguard Press,, page 200",
          "text": "In his senior year, he had run across an old '66 Chevy Super Sport headed for the junkyard, bought it for a song, and overhauled it with his dad's help, turning it into the big red muscle car it was back in its day.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 August 16, Robin Finn, “A Former Madoff Penthouse Goes Back on the Market”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "He bought it for a song in 1984 compared with what his fellow financiers were spending on tonier Park and Fifth Avenues.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "(idiomatic) For a very low price; very cheaply."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "for a song and a dance"
        }
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          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "voor een habbekrats"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "pilkkahintaan"
        },
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          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "pour trois fois rien"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "pour une bouchée de pain"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "für einen Apfel und ein Ei"
        },
        {
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "tzámpa",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "τζάμπα"
        },
        {
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "fthiná",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "φθηνά"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "za bezcen"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "za grosze"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "za półdarmo"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "very cheaply",
          "word": "de balde"
        }
      ]
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          "ref": "2009 December 11, “Jet Cemetery: Where Airplanes Go to Die”, in Businessweek",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Kat Martin, A Song for My Mother, Vanguard Press,, page 200",
          "text": "In his senior year, he had run across an old '66 Chevy Super Sport headed for the junkyard, bought it for a song, and overhauled it with his dad's help, turning it into the big red muscle car it was back in its day.",
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        },
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          "ref": "2013 August 16, Robin Finn, “A Former Madoff Penthouse Goes Back on the Market”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "He bought it for a song in 1984 compared with what his fellow financiers were spending on tonier Park and Fifth Avenues.",
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        "(idiomatic) For a very low price; very cheaply."
      ],
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "for a song and a dance"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "voor een habbekrats"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "pilkkahintaan"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "pour trois fois rien"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "pour une bouchée de pain"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "für einen Apfel und ein Ei"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "tzámpa",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "τζάμπα"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "fthiná",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "φθηνά"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "za bezcen"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "za grosze"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "za półdarmo"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "very cheaply",
      "word": "de balde"
    }
  ],
  "word": "for a song"
}

Download raw JSONL data for for a song meaning in English (3.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-09-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-08-20 using wiktextract (8e41825 and f99c758). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.