Definition of "cheapening" [cheapening]

• Present participle of cheapen. (verb)

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• "Looking back at the early operations of the trade, and considering that steel pens were made by hand at the beginning of the present century, we can scarcely understand why the idea of cheapening the production by the application of labor-saving contrivances did not occur to those inventive geniuses, the proprietors of Soho."
• "German Ocean, and for the reason that there the system is based on the idea of cheapening labour at home and underworking the labourer abroad."
• "However he wondered whether by using the metaphor of rape, Zapiro was not "cheapening" the horror of the act and helping to desensitise people."