Bargain

How to spell bargain

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bargain

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bargain mean?

1. nounSomething bought or offered for much less than its usual price.
2. nounAn agreement between parties about what each will give or do.
3. verbTo negotiate over the terms or price of something.

Bargain in a sentence

• noun

  The winter coat was a real bargain at half its original price.

• noun

  The two firms struck a bargain that suited both sides.

• verb

  Tourists often bargain with stallholders to lower the price.

• noun

  She hunted the clearance racks for a bargain before the sale ended.

• noun

  He kept his side of the bargain and finished the work on time.

• verb

  Union leaders will bargain for better pay next month.

Where does bargain come from?

Language of origin: French

Bargain comes into English from the Old French verb bargaignier, meaning 'to haggle' or 'to negotiate over a price', which appears in English texts from the 1300s. The French verb is usually traced to a Late Latin or Frankish source meaning roughly 'to carry goods to and fro' or 'to trade', echoing the activity of merchants moving wares to market. In its earliest English use it was chiefly a verb for the back-and-forth of negotiating, and only later did it settle as a noun for both the agreement reached and the good deal won by the buyer. The spelling trap lives in the ending: it is written '-gain' and not '-gan' or '-gin', even though the final syllable is an unstressed schwa that gives no clue to the vowel. Knowing the word shares its '-gain' tail with the everyday word 'gain' can help fix that ending in memory, even though the two are not directly related in origin.

How the word is built

• bargain (whole word, from Old French bargaignier 'to haggle'); not formed from separable English parts