Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Designed and made to sell without concern for quality; cheap.
- noun A cheap item.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Something of little value, adapted to attract popular attention and thus secure a quick sale; anything externally attractive, made merely to sell.
- Made or got up to gain money; put forth merely to sell: as, a catchpenny pamphlet.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Made or contrived for getting small sums of money from the ignorant or unwary.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
cheap item designed to attract purchasers of other goods
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective designed to sell quickly without concern for quality
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Well, I went on perusing the work, and found almost at once that it was what is called a catchpenny, and depended altogether, for its success, upon the fame and reputation of its predecessor of nearly the same name.
The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain The Works of William Carleton, Volume One William Carleton 1831
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In everything one finds this frank acceptance of twin values which are not expected to have anything in common: on the one hand a quite unclouded, quite unhypocritical assumption of transcendent theory “high ideals”; on the other a simultaneous acceptance of catchpenny realities.
Archive 2009-09-01 2009
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Rose believed Crossfire was "much too important a picture to be advertised like a catchpenny potboiler," noting that on "18,000 screens it can do more good than a whole passel of tolerance societies with fancy names on the stationery."
Caught in the Crossfire: Adrian Scott and the Politics of Americanism in 1940s Hollywood 2007
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In everything one finds this frank acceptance of twin values which are not expected to have anything in common: on the one hand a quite unclouded, quite unhypocritical assumption of transcendent theory “high ideals”; on the other a simultaneous acceptance of catchpenny realities.
Highbrow and lowbrow 2009
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Start ending the environmental catchpenny of blended fuel mandates that†™ s done squat to clean our air, but done tons to sully our wallets.
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The distinction he made in his fictions — between novels and "entertainments" — was one that he first evolved to excuse himself for writing an openly catchpenny movie script in the form of Orient Express.
I'll Be Damned 2005
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The distinction he made in his fictions — between novels and "entertainments" — was one that he first evolved to excuse himself for writing an openly catchpenny movie script in the form of Orient Express.
I'll Be Damned 2005
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The distinction he made in his fictions — between novels and "entertainments" — was one that he first evolved to excuse himself for writing an openly catchpenny movie script in the form of Orient Express.
I'll Be Damned 2005
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Reviews: ‘Caine is a talented enough and likeable enough performer to create the illusion of a mature irony at work on catchpenny material’ - The Voice
Films of Michael Caine #43: Blame It on Rio DAVID BISHOP 2007
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Don't let your lip curl at the catchpenny title -- the book contains much that would be of value to any writer.
Kate Atkinson: Case Histories Michael Allen 2005
mollusque commented on the word catchpenny
His book was a novel; it had the catchpenny cover, and while the romance of life stood neglected at his side he lost himself in that of the circulating library.
--Henry James, 1893, "The Middle Years", Scribner's Magazine 13: 610
October 28, 2009