discount

Pluraldiscounts

Formsdiscounts, discounting, discounted

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A reduction in the usual price of a product or service.

   The dealership offered a discount of two thousand dollars on last year's models.

   Employees receive discounts on most items in the store.

   Similarreduction, markdown, deduction, rebate, concession

   Oppositemarkup, surcharge, premium

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To sell goods at a reduced price.

   Airlines discount unsold seats in the final days before departure.

   The retailer discounted older phone models after the new release.

   Similarreduce, cut, slash

3. 3
   adjective

   Specializing in the sale of goods at reduced prices.

   The discount chain undercut its competitors on nearly every product.

   He furnished his apartment entirely from discount retailers.

   Similarbudget, cut-price, low-cost, cheap

   Oppositeupscale, luxury, high-end, premium

   Note

   A word that stands before a noun to classify a seller or its stock: a discount clothier, discount wares. It does not compare, so no shop is more discount than another. It sorts businesses into a kind rather than measuring degree, which is why it never takes very or more.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To disregard something, such as an account or claim, or regard it as unimportant.

   Investigators discounted the witness's account after finding inconsistencies.

   You can't discount the possibility that the data was corrupted.

   Similardismiss, disregard, ignore, reject, overlook

   Oppositeaccept, credit, consider, acknowledge

   Note

   Subtraction turned into judgment: what you discount here is the weight of a claim, not a sum. The object is usually someone's words, such as comments, an account or an opinion. William Hamilton, lecturing in 1859–1860, sets a rival view aside with a curt parenthesis: 'I discount Brown's.' Reputation often supplies the reason, as when people discount a speaker's comments because of who he is.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To take something into consideration beforehand; to anticipate an event and form conclusions about it in advance.

   Investors had already discounted the rate hike, so prices barely moved when it was announced.

   Markets discount expected earnings long before companies report them.

   Similaranticipate

   Note

   It is easily mistaken for the 'dismiss it' meaning, but it works the other way: an event discounted here is counted in ahead of time, not waved aside. Markets are the usual subject. Once a market has discounted a change in interest rates, the change itself moves prices very little, because its effect was absorbed before it happened.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A deduction taken as interest when money is advanced on, or used to purchase, a bill or note before it is due; interest paid in advance.

   The bank purchased the ninety-day note at a discount reflecting the interest for the remaining term.

   Merchants often accepted a discount in exchange for immediate cash on bills not yet payable.

   Oppositepremium

   Note

   Finance's version of the price cut: here the discount is interest taken in advance. Whoever buys or lends on a note before it falls due pays out its face value minus this deduction, then collects the full sum when the note matures. The lender is therefore paid first rather than last, which is what sets discounting apart from interest that accrues over a loan's term.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To advance or lend money on a bill or note, deducting the interest from the amount paid out.

   The bank discounted the merchant's ninety-day bill at six percent.

   Small finance houses discount invoices for companies that need immediate working capital.

   Note

   A banker's verb whose object is the paper rather than the money: banks discount notes and bills of exchange, paying out less than their face value now. William Walsh's Letter on the present state of the Currency of Great Britain (1692) advises discounting 'only unexceptionable paper', meaning bills sound enough to trust. The amount held back is the noun for the withheld interest.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   The rate of interest charged when discounting a bill or note.

   The discount on prime commercial paper fell to four percent.

   Lenders quoted a higher discount as credit conditions tightened.

   Note

   Here the word names a percentage rather than a sum. It is the rate at which notes are discounted, as opposed to the amount actually withheld. When this rate rises, anyone selling a bill early receives less cash for it, so the same word can describe both the price of the money and the money kept back.

9. 9
   nounfiguratively

   A lack of something, or a respect in which someone or something falls short.

   On our approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived, I was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass of ale.

   1849, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield

   Similarshortcoming, deficiency, shortfall, failing

   Note

   The price-reduction idea stretched to people: someone at a discount is running below full value. Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, on his way to call on the Misses Spenlow, is 'at such a discount' in his looks and presence of mind that Traddles proposes a glass of ale. The phrase at a discount carries the meaning, and in respect of names what is lacking.

10. 10
    verbintransitive

    To put one's own feelings ahead of the facts of a situation, either in thought or in behavior.

    Whenever the diagnosis came up, he discounted, retreating into how unfair it all felt.

    Clients often discount in early sessions, treating their distress as proof the facts can't be true.

    Note

    Transactional analysis gave the word a clinical meaning: to minimize or ignore some part of oneself, other people or the situation, so that feelings outweigh facts. Its everyday cousin is the plain 'disregard' meaning. The therapeutic term adds that the person is defending a picture of things the facts do not support, and it belongs in that professional frame rather than in casual talk.

11. 11
    nouncountable

    The act of believing, or acting as though one believes, that one's own feelings are more important than the reality of a situation.

    His insistence that the deadline didn't apply to him was a textbook discount.

    The therapist noted several discounts in how the couple described their finances.

    Similardenial

    Note

    The noun of the transactional-analysis verb, counted one instance at a time: a single discount, several discounts. Practitioners use the plural to tally the separate moments in which someone sets an aspect of reality aside in favor of feelings. They commonly sort these by what is being ignored and by how deeply.

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