dime
Americannoun
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dimes
plural
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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:
Kilgore has flown to L.A. on his own dime to guide Folger through the pre-show tech rehearsal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
The 70 family shareholders come back for the company’s annual meeting; the extended family, every five years on the company’s dime.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
You can get the ball rolling without it costing you a dime.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
Hence her latest caper, which begins with a mission to track down a vintage desk and turns on a dime into a heist tied to a cache of gold.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026
Ned grimaced and placed a dime on the counter.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
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
“We have to do a better job to find those pennies out there—those pennies, nickels and dimes to save and not turn the lights on until you need to,” he says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
At that time in the 1960s, dimes, quarters and half dollars had roughly 0.725 ounces of silver per $1 of coin value.
From Barron's ● Oct. 20, 2025
“Their discs sell like dimes going for a nickel,” Florabel Muir reported in the Los Angeles Mirror in January 1952.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2025
When we got to the front of the line the Preacher put down two American dimes and we went into the tent.
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
