half-pricen.
1. Half the usual or full price; esp. that at which children or poor people are admitted to an entertainment or the like, or that at which people are admitted to a theatre when the performance is half through. Also, the time at which people are so admitted, ‘half-time’.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > monetary value > price > low price or rate > [noun] > half-price
half-price1720
1720 D. Defoe Life Capt. Singleton 312 It was much better for us to sell all our Cargoe here, though we made but half Price of them.
1785 W. Cowper Task ii. 624 A man o' the town dines late, but soon enough..To insure a side-box station at half price.
1813 Examiner 15 Feb. 108/1 That class..whom the half-price admits to disturb the order..of the..Theatres.
1848 Thackeray Bk. Snobs xli. 160 We drank mulled Port till half-price.
1898 N.E.D. at Half-price, Mod. Children under 12, half-price.
2. attrib. or quasi-adj.
ΚΠ
1836 Dickens Sketches by Boz 2nd Ser. 24 Theatrical converse, arising out of their last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery.
1886 Cornhill Mag. July 59 Can this have been the origin of the old English half-price plan?
3. quasi-adv. At half-price.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > monetary value > price > low price or rate > [adverb] > at half-price
half-price1843
1843 Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) xxxii. 381 He takes me half-price to the play.
1853 Dickens Bleak House xi. 105 To go half-price to the play.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1898; most recently modified version published online March 2016).
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n.1720