bet a dollar to a doughnut
bet a dollar to a doughnut verb: to declare with confidence.
Verb
bet a dollar to a doughnut (third-person singular simple present bets a dollar to a doughnut, present participle betting a dollar to a doughnut, simple past and past participle bet a dollar to a doughnut)
- To declare with confidence.
- I bet a dollar to a doughnut that fellow Lopez sold us out.1911, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 19, in Captain Scraggs
- There's places where a dago-dazzler doesn't cut much ice, but it was dollars to doughnuts that the Sultan'd have a kindly feeling for it when I had Mungo explain that it was from the President of the U. S. A., telling him to treat his Uncle Phineas good and white, and he'd do the same by him some...1917, Walter Alleyne Ireland, Beating 'em to it: Or, The Sultan and the Sausages
Examples of bet a dollar to a doughnut in a sentence
- Mulroney said "you can bet a dollar to a doughnut" that acid rain would feature in the campaign.1988 April 25, John F. Burns, “Canada Losing Patience With U.S. on Acid Rain”, in New York Times, retrieved 25 Apr 2015:
- I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut Usain Bolt is not the fastest human on the planet.2010 September 13, Red Shannon, “The Greatest Athlete Who Never Was”, in Bleacher Report, retrieved 25 Apr 2015:
Synonyms of bet a dollar to a doughnut
Forms of bet a dollar to a doughnut
| third-person singular present | bets a dollar to a doughnut |
|---|---|
| present participle | betting a dollar to a doughnut |
| past participle | bet a dollar to a doughnut |
| past | bet a dollar to a doughnut |
| alternative form | bet a dollar to a donut |
| alternative form | wager a dollar to a doughnut |
| alternative form | bet dollars to doughnuts |
| alternative phrase | dollars to donuts |
Origin of bet a dollar to a doughnut
Possibly adapted from "bet dollars to buttons" and "bet dollars to dumplings" that appeared in the 1880s, meaning "to feel almost certain" because the dollars are bet against something nearly worthless and perhaps shaped like a zero.
Questions about bet a dollar to a doughnut
- What does bet a dollar to a doughnut mean?
- Bet a dollar to a doughnut means to declare with confidence.
- How do you use bet a dollar to a doughnut in a sentence?
- Mulroney said "you can bet a dollar to a doughnut" that acid rain would feature in the campaign.
- What part of speech is bet a dollar to a doughnut?
- Bet a dollar to a doughnut is a verb.
- What is the past tense of bet a dollar to a doughnut?
- The past tense of bet a dollar to a doughnut is bet a dollar to a doughnut.
Words near bet a dollar to a doughnut in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bet a dollar to a doughnut (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bet a dollar to a doughnut.wav.
Cite this entry: “bet a dollar to a doughnut.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bet_a_dollar_to_a_doughnut. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.