for a song

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English

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Prepositional phrase

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for a song

  1. (idiomatic) For a very low price; very cheaply.
    • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 48, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers [], →OCLC:
      They remembered then that they could have bought for a song canvases which now were worth large sums.
    • 2009 December 11, “Jet Cemetery: Where Airplanes Go to Die”, in Businessweek[1]:
      [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.
    • 2011, Kat Martin, A Song for My Mother, Vanguard Press,, →ISBN, page 200:
      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.
    • 2013 August 16, Robin Finn, “A Former Madoff Penthouse Goes Back on the Market”, in The New York Times[2], →ISSN:
      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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Translations

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