dime
/daɪm/
dime noun: a coin worth one-tenth of a dollar, that is, ten cents.
Noun
dime (plural dimes)
- A coin worth one-tenth of a dollar, that is, ten cents.
- The San Francisco mint made about 2.5 million of these dimes, but fewer than 10 are still known to exist, according to Heritage. That’s because a financial crisis in 1893 killed demand for new coinage, and almost all the dimes were melted down.2016 January 8, Aaron Smith, “This old dime just sold for $2 million”, in CNN
- Synonyms:
- ten-cent piece
- A small amount of money.
- She didn't spend a dime.
- An assist.
- A playing card with the rank of ten.
- Ten dollars.
- A thousand dollars.
- At one point, Rob hit a dire losing streak. In a single week, he dropped a dime—$1,000.2007 05, Ted McClelland, Horseplayers: Life at the Track, Chicago Review Press, →ISBN
- Synonyms:
- grand
- A measure of illicit drugs (usually marijuana) sold in ten-dollar bags.
- A ten-year prison sentence.
- These deaths got him a dime in a minimum-security prison.2007 September 23, David Bowman, “Torchlit Crit”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Payment responsibility.
- Are you traveling on the company's dime?
- A beautiful woman (10 on a 10-point scale).
- Make a couple of nuns a couple of dimes.2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), Most Known Unknown, performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring...
- Wait in line for drinks, it’s another time out / Made out on the floor with a couple dimes2008, “House Music”, in Afterparty Babies, performed by Cadence Weapon
- Synonyms:
- dime piece
- A defensive formation with six defensive backs, one of whom is a dimeback.
- A particularly long or precise throw that ends with a catch.
Verb
dime (third-person singular simple present dimes, present participle diming, simple past and past participle dimed)
- To inform on, to turn in to the authorities, to rat on, especially anonymously.
- Somebody dimed on me and I got arrested for selling marijuana.
- Synonyms:
- drop a dime on someone, dime out, bewray, blow the whistle, clepe, denounce, dob, drop a dime, finger, fink
- To operate an audio amplifier (especially an electric guitar amplifier) at level "10" (typically the highest amplification level).
- I get the best-sounding sustain and smooth harmonic distortion when I run the amp dimed.
Proper noun (1) capitalized: DIME
DIME
- Acronym of Dark Internet Mail Environment.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Dime
Dime
dime meaning in Urdu, Gujarati and Nepali
dime in Urdu
- ڈائم
dime in Gujarati
- ડાઇમ
dime in Nepali
- डाइम
Examples of dime in a sentence
- People with your skills are a dime a dozen these days.
- I bought my new ride from some nickel and dime used-car salesman.
- Don't waste your time with that; their operations are nickel and dime.
Synonyms of dime
- ten-cent piece
- grand
- dime piece
- drop a dime on someone
- dime out
- bewray
- blow the whistle
- clepe
- denounce
- dob
27 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of dime
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | dimes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | dimes |
| present participle | diming |
| past participle | dimed |
| past | dimed |
Origin of dime
From Middle English dime, from Anglo-Norman disme (“one tenth, tithe”) (modern French dîme), from Medieval Latin decima, from Latin decima (pars) (“tenth (part)”). Doublet of decim, decima, and decime.
From the use of the coin in a payphone to report a crime to the police. US payphones charged 10¢ in almost all jurisdictions until the late 1970s.
Words formed from dime
- bet a dime to a dollar
- bet a dollar to a dime
- dime a dozen
- dimeback
- dime back
- dime bag
- dime-bag
- dime-dropper
- dime dropper
- dimeless
- dimelike
- dime museum
- dime novel
- dime novelist
- dime piece
- dime store
- dime's worth
- drop a dime
- five-and-dime
- five and dime
- half dime
- Mercury dime
- nickel-and-dime
- nickel and dime
- not worth a dime
- on a dime
- on someone's dime
- on someone's own dime
- Yankee dime
Phrases with dime
- 5 & dime
- dime out
- dime bags
- dime backs
- dime novels
- dime pieces
- dime stores
- dime museums
- drops a dime
- dime droppers
- a dime a dozen
- dime novelists
6 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with dime
31 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about dime
- What does dime mean?
- Dime means a coin worth one-tenth of a dollar, that is, ten cents.
- What is dime in Urdu?
- Dime in Urdu is ڈائم. See Dime meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is dime?
- Dime can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce dime?
- Dime is pronounced /daɪm/.
- What is the plural of dime?
- The plural of dime is dimes.
Words near dime in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dime (page history and authors); DIME (page history and authors); Dime (page history and authors); dime (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dime (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dime (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-au-dime.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dime.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dime. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.