You're shopping for wine at a wine store. You want a wine that's good but not too expensive. You ask a store employee for a recommendation. He says:
This one is relatively inexpensive.
this one
In the example above, imagine that the wine store employee is holding or touching the bottle. If he's pointing to one that's more than a meter or so away, he should say "that one" instead.
relatively (adjective)
Use this expression when you want to compare something to other things of the same kind. In the example above, saying that the wine is "relatively inexpensive" means that it's cheaper than a lot of other wines that are of similar quality. The price might still seem expensive to the customer, but it is "relatively" cheap compared to those other wines.
The way that people use "relatively ___" is similar to "pretty ___" or "rather ___". It means an amount which is larger than "a little ___" but less than "very ___". So here are some examples:
- Most movies are about 90-100 minutes long. So a move that is 85 minutes long is "relatively short".
- The average height for men in the U.S. is 5 feet, 9 inches. Very tall people are sometimes 6 feet, 5 inches. So a 6-foot-tall man is "relatively tall".
Some adjectives which often appear after "relatively" are:
relatively small (number, percentage, budget)
relatively low (cost, chances, prices)
relatively easy (to do something)
relatively short (distance, time)
relatively simple
(something) is inexpensive
"Inexpensive" means "not expensive" or "cheap".
The word "cheap" can have a slightly negative connotation. You call things that are low quality "cheap":
But "inexpensive" doesn't have the same negative sound, so it's good to use if you work at a store and want to tell customers about a cheap item.
The letters "in-" are used at the beginning of several words to mean "not ___". In this example, "inexpensive" means "not expensive". Here are some other examples:
- incapable - not capable of doing something (not able to do it)
- inoffensive - not offensive (not making people shocked and angry)
- inconsiderate - not considerate of other people (not thinking about other people's feelings)
- inconsequential - not consequential (not important)
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