DCHP-2

borscht DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• in expression — cheap like borscht, Urban culture

  something that is extremely cheap.

  Type: 5. Frequency — The expression is used almost exclusively in Canada (see Chart 1). Borscht is a beet soup that was brought to Canada by immigrants from Russia, the Ukraine, and other countries in eastern Europe, who started to arrive at the turn of the nineteenth century. The expression likely circulated in speech long before it appeared in writing.
  See also COD-2, s.v. "borscht", which is marked "Cdn".

  • In Canada, the spelling in generally borscht, while OED-3, s.v. "borsch", list forms without the final consonant, e.g. borsch.