five-and-dime
Americannoun
-
a variety store that sells small, inexpensive items.
-
a thing, situation, or practice in which a 5 is followed by a 10, such as a golf hole that is best played with a 5 iron and then a 10 iron, or judging a screenplay based on its first 5 and last 10 pages (often used attributively).
adjective
-
relating to or being a variety store that sells small items at low prices.
-
inexpensive and of poor quality; cheap or lacking in class and sophistication.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Newberry’s five-and-dime store, she worked for a month and a half to pay it off in installments, wearing it for years until it all but disintegrated.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025
The pictures were put on postcards and sold at a different five-and-dime that his brother managed.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 27, 2022
Born in New York on June 6, 1933, Broad was an only child who grew up in Detroit, where his Lithuanian immigrant father, Leon, worked as a house painter before operating several five-and-dime stores.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 30, 2021
A coin, or battered key, a ring from the five-and-dime — ancient codes to crack when someone dies, if no one’s kept their history.
From New York Times • Apr. 1, 2020
After buying a few items at the five-and-dime store—a comb, toothpaste, notepaper—the four young black men would head for the lunch counter at the rear of the store, sit down, and order coffee.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
