five-and-dime
Americannoun
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a variety store that sells small, inexpensive items.
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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
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relating to or being a variety store that sells small items at low prices.
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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
Come back, lover, come back to the five-and-dime.
From New York Times ● May 6, 2022
That’s like getting Walmart to promise to partner with the five-and-dime down the street.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 2, 2022
Some Fridays, we walk to downtown Greenville where there are some clothing stores, some restaurants, a motel and the five-and-dime store but my grandmother won't take us into any of those places anymore.
From "Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson
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.
