Word.ws English Dictionary

a bad penny always comes back

a bad penny always comes back is the alternative form of a bad penny always turns up.

Meaning of a bad penny always turns up

Proverb

a bad penny always turns up

  1. A person or thing which is unpleasant, dishonorable, or unwanted tends to appear (or reappear), especially at inopportune times.
    • It has been wisely said: “A bad penny always turns up again.” . . . Merwin K. Hart turns up again and again. And the Money-Changers of the Republican Party have knowingly sought to profit from Hart's lobby activities.1952, Ralph Morris Goldman, “The Money-Changers at the Ballot Box: A Study of Republican Election Buying,”, in The Future Catches Up, Vol. 2, published 2002, →ISBN, page 89
  2. An action or task that is carried out improperly eventually causes problems.

Questions about a bad penny always comes back

What is a bad penny always comes back the alternative form of?
A bad penny always comes back is the alternative form of a bad penny always turns up.

Words near a bad penny always comes back in the dictionary

  1. A 1
  2. a aa
  3. A and E
  4. A and M
  5. a baculo
  6. a bad penny always comes back
  7. a bad penny always turns up
  8. a bad tree does not yield good apples
  9. a bad workman always blames his tools
  10. A band
  11. A bands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: a bad penny always comes back (page history and authors); a bad penny always turns up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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