ma-and-pa
Americanadjective
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.
I miss drive-in theaters and “Gunsmoke” and ma-and-pa Italian joints.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 21, 2019
Once she graduated, Wyman ran her long-shot City Hall campaign out of her parents' ma-and-pa drugstore at 9th and Western.
From Los Angeles Times • May 13, 2016
She’s fearsome but pragmatic: As the show has emphasized, perhaps too vigorously, the Gerhardt crime family is a ma-and-pa operation and Kansas City is the big box store coming to town.
From New York Times • Nov. 2, 2015
He didn't have figures for how many brokerages have closed in recent years, though he said the smaller ma-and-pa operations often have been the ones that "learned some tough lessons."
From Chicago Tribune • Jul. 11, 2011
From a tangle of 3,000 mostly ma-and-pa firms, three ambulance leaders, all based in the West, have emerged to seize 25% of the national market.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
