bargain

Pluralbargains

Formsbargains, bargaining, bargained

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An item bought for significantly less than its usual or recommended price.

   The vintage coat turned out to be a genuine bargain.

   Shoppers crowded the store looking for post-holiday bargains.

   Similarsteal

   Oppositerip-off

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To negotiate the terms of a deal or contract; to haggle over a price.

   Tourists who bargain politely often get better prices.

   She bargained hard with the dealer over the car.

   Similarhaggle, negotiate, barter, dicker

   Note

   An intransitive verb, so whatever is haggled over enters through a preposition: you bargain for a rug, with a dealer, or over a price. Shakespeare's Henry VI scorns how "worthless peasants bargain for their wives." The slogan "United we bargain, divided we beg" sets it against begging: to bargain is to ask from strength. When the traded thing is a direct object, it is the bartering verb instead.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A formal agreement between parties for the sale of property, in which one party transfers ownership for payment and the other receives it and pays.

   The bargain required the seller to transfer the deed within thirty days.

   Lawyers drafted the bargain covering the transfer of the warehouse.

   Similarcontract, agreement, deal

   Note

   The legal sense, with a pedigree in lending: Old French bargaigner comes from a Frankish verb meaning "to borrow, lend," which goes back to a root meaning "to protect, secure." Wharton's Law Lexicon (1883) draws the useful line: "A contract is a bargain that is legally binding." Every contract is a bargain, then, but a bargain becomes a contract only when the law will enforce it.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A transaction that works out to one's advantage; a favorable purchase.

   The merger proved a shrewd bargain for the smaller company.

   Investors called the early stock purchase the bargain of the decade.

   Similardeal, steal

   Note

   Where the cut-price item is the thing on the shelf, this is the deal itself, judged by how well it turned out. It is often intensified, as in "a great bargain" in Marie Belloc Lowndes's The Lodger (1913). The set phrase is to buy something at a bargain. One step up the scale sits steal: "it's not just a bargain, it's a steal."

5. 5
   nouncountable

   An agreement or mutual pledge between parties; a stipulation each side promises to keep.

   The two leaders honored their bargain to keep the peace.

   She held up her end of the bargain without complaint.

   Similarcontract, agreement, engagement, stipulation

   Note

   Here no money need change hands, because the bargain is a promise. In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare speaks of solemnizing "the bargain of your faith," meaning a betrothal. That is why engagement appears among its synonyms alongside contract and stipulation. The sense lives on wherever each side is said to keep its end of the bargain, because what is exchanged is commitment.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To transfer something to another in exchange for payment or goods; to barter or trade it.

   The settlers bargained furs for tools and supplies.

   She refused to bargain her inheritance for quick cash.

   Similartrade, barter, exchange, swap

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The thing that an agreement stipulates, or the thing that is purchased.

   The new owner walked every acre of her bargain the day the sale closed.

   Three hundred bushels of wheat was the bargain, and the merchant counted every sack on delivery.

   Similarpurchase

   Note

   The deal is named by what it delivers, and that can be a person as easily as goods. Shakespeare's Othello turns it to contempt: "She was too fond of her most filthy bargain." Said of someone, the word frames them as something acquired, and the frame is usually scornful. Purchase is its plain synonym when the thing is an object.

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