Dictionary

at a premium en · ADP

Meanings

1. Above par value.
2. At a high, or higher than expected, price.
3. Scarce, in short supply.
   • Disk space on that server is at a premium.
   • Both Ameobi and Sunderland forward Darren Bent had gone close in the early exchanges but chances were at a premium thereafter. 2011 January 16, Saj Chowdhury, “Sunderland 1 - 1 Newcastle”, in BBC:
   • And it had been a close-run thing for many of the nearest - perhaps too close. Councillor Renee Spector, a senior member of Birmingham City Council planning committee, told the local press that the accident might force "a rethink" about the way it considered future applications. "There is a case for a buffer zone, but the problem is that land is at such a premium it is difficult to insist on a large distance between houses and railway lines," she said. 2026 March 18, Greg Morse, “1996 crash driving freight reforms”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 51:
   • So many people were doing up their apartments that supplies of high-grade fixtures and fittings were at a premium. There were waiting lists for baths, doorknobs, imported hardwoods, antiqued fireplaces, bidets, marble slabs. 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 3:
   • Flair and invention were very much at a premium, suffocated by the relentless pace and often fractious nature of proceedings. The absence of James Morrison from the centre of Scotland’s midfield, the West Brom man ruled out on the morning of the game by illness, had already diminished the creative capacity of the home side in that department. 2014 November 14, Stephen Halliday, “Scotland 1-0 Republic of Ireland: Maloney the hero”, in The Scotsman: