dime
Americannoun
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a cupronickel-clad coin of the U.S. and Canada, the 10th part of a dollar, equal to 10 cents.
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Slang.
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ten dollars.
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a 10-year prison sentence.
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idioms
noun
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a coin of the US and Canada, worth one tenth of a dollar or ten cents
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very cheap or common
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dime
1350–1400; Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French di ( s ) me < Latin decima tenth part, tithe, noun use of feminine of decimus tenth, derivative of decem ten
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.
See Examples For:
Telling me your overall retirement balance is $1.3 million is fine, but detailing the breakdown of your various accounts to the dime and what funds you’re invested in is too much.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
Instead, he held that the guards had not “consented” to be sued for damages, so Landor could not recover a dime from them.
From Slate ● Jun. 23, 2026
Electrospray thrusters are tiny rocket engines, roughly the size of a dime.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 10, 2026
Television shows built around name-brand comics are a dime a dozen.
From Salon ● May 29, 2026
We got off and I figgered out why the man called me sir; it was ’cause they’d feel guilty if they didn’t give you something for the dime they was charging to take us ’crost.
From "The Journey of Little Charlie" by Christopher Paul Curtis
The most expensive item is Monroe's gold-toned 1950s cylindrical minaudiere purse carrying her tiny hair comb, a tube of lipstick, eight Philip Morris cigarettes and 1940s dimes.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
Traders bundled silver dimes, quarters and half-dollars in face-value increments and launched an arcane—not to mention bulky—asset class.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
This meant that dimes, quarters and half dollars had the same amount of silver relative to their face values.
From Barron's ● Oct. 20, 2025
It’s beneficial, and also really, really inexpensive; per capita, adding fluoride to the water can cost on the order of dimes each year.
From Slate ● Jan. 16, 2025
I rattled the two dimes, making sure they were still there.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
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.
