Meaning & use
discount
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Meanings
nouncountable
An amount taken off the normal price of something.
Grammar: Countable: a ten percent discount; often with on or for.
Patterns
- a discount on something
- a discount for someone
Students get a discount on train tickets.
The shop offered a twenty percent discount on winter coats.
We bought the sofa at a big discount.
verbtransitivebusiness
To lower the price of something, or to sell it for less than usual.
Grammar: Takes an object: discount the old stock.
Patterns
- discount something by something
The store discounted all summer clothes by half.
Airlines often discount tickets in the off season.
The bakery discounts bread in the evening.
verbtransitive
To treat something as unlikely or unimportant and not take it seriously.
Grammar: Takes an object; sometimes followed by as: discount a rumor as false.
Patterns
- discount something as something
- discount the possibility of something
Police have not discounted the possibility of a break-in.
She discounted his warnings as exaggeration.
You can't discount the role of luck in his success.
Word forms
| plural | discounts |
|---|---|
| third person singular | discounts |
| past tense | discounted |
| past participle | discounted |
| -ing form | discounting |
Common combinations
- offer a discount
- The cafe offers a discount to regular customers.
- at a discount
- The tickets were sold at a discount.
- discount code
- Enter the discount code at checkout.
- student discount
- Show your card to get a student discount.
- discount the possibility
- Experts cannot discount the possibility of rain.
Synonyms and how they differ
- reduction
- Reduction is a general word for any lowering, while discount specifically means off a normal price.
- markdown
- Markdown is a store's lowering of a listed price, and is a business term more than a general one.
- rebate
- A rebate is money returned after payment, whereas a discount is taken off at the time of buying.
- dismiss
- Dismiss is the stronger synonym for the second verb sense and implies refusing to consider.
Opposites
Word family
- discounted adjective
- sold at a lower price
- discounter noun
- a shop that sells at low prices
- discountable adjective
- able to be ignored or reduced
- count verb
- the root verb meaning to number
Commonly confused: discount or discount? discount or disregard?
discount vs discount
The noun is stressed on the first syllable (DIS-count), and the verb is usually stressed on the second (dis-COUNT) in the dismissing sense, though both stress patterns appear.
discount vs disregard
Disregard means to ignore completely, while discount means to give something less weight.
Practice
Investigators have not ____ the possibility that the fire was started deliberately.
Choose one answer.
Discount here means to rule out or treat as unlikely. Discovered is tempting but does not collocate with the possibility in this negative way.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “discount”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.