Definition of "catchpenny" [catch•pen•ny]

• Designed and made to sell without concern for quality; cheap. (adjective)
• A cheap item. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "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."
• "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.""
• "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."