for a song
Prepositional phrase
  1. (idiomatic) For a very low price; very cheaply.
    • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 48:
      They remembered then that they could have bought for a song canvases which now were worth large sums.
    • 2009 Dec. 11, "Jet Cemetery: Where Airplanes Go to Die ↗," Businessweek (retrieved 6 April 2015):
      [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 9781593156565, gbooks aDz9AgAAQBAJ:
      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 Aug. 16, Robin Finn, "A Former Madoff Penthouse Goes Back on the Market ↗," New York Times (retrieved 6 April 2015):
      He bought it for a song in 1984 compared with what his fellow financiers were spending on tonier Park and Fifth Avenues.
Translations
  • French: pour trois fois rien, pour une bouchée de pain
  • German: für einen Apfel und ein Ei
  • Spanish: de balde



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