hold cheap

hold cheap (third-person singular simple present holds cheap, present participle holding cheap, simple past and past participle held cheap)

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To have a low esteem for (someone or something); to hold in contempt; to look down upon.
   • 1927, Countee Cullen, “From the Dark Tower”, in Copper Sun, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, part 1 (Color); republished in James Weldon Johnson, editor, The Book of American Negro Poetry […], revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1931, →OCLC, page 228:

     We shall not always plant while others reap / The golden increment of bursting fruit, / Not always countenance, abject and mute / That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; […]