Word.ws English Dictionary

a day late and a dollar short

a day late and a dollar short adjective: too late and too feeble to achieve the desired effect.

Adjective

a day late and a dollar short

  1. (US, idiomatic, predicative) Too late and too feeble to achieve the desired effect.
    • His apology was a day late and a dollar short.

Adverb

a day late and a dollar short

  1. (US, idiomatic) Adverbial use of the adjectival form.
    • Help arrived a day late and a dollar short.

Forms of a day late and a dollar short

alternative formday late, dollar short

Questions about a day late and a dollar short

What does a day late and a dollar short mean?
A day late and a dollar short means too late and too feeble to achieve the desired effect.
What part of speech is a day late and a dollar short?
A day late and a dollar short can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near a day late and a dollar short in the dictionary

  1. A cup
  2. A cups
  3. a damn sight
  4. a danger foreseen is half avoided
  5. a day after the fair
  6. a day late and a dollar short
  7. a deal is a deal
  8. a dime a dozen
  9. a double s
  10. a drowning man will clutch at a straw
  11. a drowning man will grab at a straw

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: a day late and a dollar short (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-a day late and a dollar short.ogg.

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