Word.ws English Dictionary

nickel

/ˈnɪk.əl/

nickel noun: a silvery elemental metal with an atomic number of 28 and symbol Ni.

nickel: a silvery elemental metal with an atomic number of 28 and symbol Ni
Image: Jurii, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

nickel (countable and uncountable, plural nickels)

  1. (uncountable) A silvery elemental metal with an atomic number of 28 and symbol Ni.
  2. (Canada, US, countable) A coin worth 5 cents.
    • That is just objectively terrifying regardless of contexts! He looks like if a nickel did cocaine!2017 October 8, “Confederacy”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 4, episode 26, John Oliver (actor), via HBO
    Synonyms:
    jitney
  3. (US, broadly, slang) Five dollars.
  4. (US, broadly, slang) Five hundred dollars.
  5. (US, slang, sometimes the nickel or the hot nickel) Interstate 5, a highway that runs along the West Coast of the United States.
  6. (slang) A playing card with the rank of five.
  7. (US, slang) A five-year prison sentence.
  8. A defensive formation with five defensive backs, one of whom is a nickelback, instead of the more-common four.
  9. (UK, World War II) An airborne propaganda leaflet.
    • Colonel Hazeltine still had trouble persuading air commanders to drop the nickels. Pilots profanely protested against risking their necks on such foolishness. But in the end 15,000,000 leaflets a week were being dropped on Sicily and Italy.1945, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 217, Curtis Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 79
    • Many types of nickels were used in psychological warfare. Classified according to general purpose, there were strategic and tactical leaflets.1948, The Army Air Forces in World War II, volume 3, Office of Air Force History, →ISBN, page 495

Adjective

nickel (not comparable)

  1. (US, dated, idiomatic) Synonym of cheap: Low price and/or low value.
    • Let me give you the nickel tour of the office.

Verb

nickel (third-person singular simple present nickels, present participle (US) nickeling or (UK) nickelling, simple past and past participle (US) nickeled or (UK) nickelled)

  1. (transitive) To plate with nickel.
  2. (UK, World War II) To distribute airborne leaflet propaganda.
    • The 422d Bombardment Squadron extended the scope of its operations considerably in April and "attacked" Norwegian targets with the leaflet bomb. The number of cities nickeled per mission also increased until it was common for fifteen to twenty-five to be scheduled as targets for a five-plane...1948, The Army Air Forces in World War II, volume 3, Office of Air Force History, →ISBN, pages 496–497
    • We flew numerous nickeling missions over the population centers of Southern France, dropping thousands of pounds of leaflets.1966, Monro MacCloskey, Secret Air Missions, R. Rosen Press, →OCLC, page 36

Proper noun capitalized: Nickel

Nickel

  1. A surname originating as a patronymic.

nickel meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

nickel in Hindi

element
रूपक rūpak, निकल nikal

nickel in Tamil

element
வன்வெள்ளி vaṉveḷḷi, நிக்கல் nikkal

nickel in Marathi

निकेल, निकील

nickel in Urdu

element
دھات کا نام dhāt kā nām, نکل nikal
coin
سکّہ
More languagesFewer languages
nickel in Bengali
নিকেল্, নিকেলে তৈয়ারি, নিকেল করা, নিকেলের প্রলেপ করা
nickel in Telugu
నికెలు nikelu, నికిలము nikilamu
nickel in Malayalam
നിക്കൽ nikkal
nickel in Kannada
ನಿಕಲ್, ನಿಕೆಲ್
nickel in Punjabi
ਨਿਕਲ, ਨਿੱਕਲ, ਨਿਕੇਲ
nickel in Gujarati
નિકલ nikal
nickel in Odia
ନିକେଲ୍, ନିକେଲ, ନିକଲ୍
nickel in Nepali
निकेल
nickel in Tagalog
nikel
nickel in Arabic
نِيكِل nīkil
nickel in Malay
nikel
nickel in Indonesian
nikel
nickel in Persian
نیکل nikel
nickel in Thai
นิกเกิล ník-gə̂əl
nickel in Vietnamese
nikel
nickel in Myanmar
နီကယ် nikai

Examples of nickel in a sentence

  • 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.
  • If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been fired, I'd be rich.

All 40 example sentences with nickel

Synonyms of nickel

11 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of nickel

Forms of nickel

Noun
pluralnickels
Verb
third-person singular presentnickels
present participle USnickeling
present participle UKnickelling
past participle USnickeled
past USnickeled
past participle UKnickelled
past UKnickelled

Plural of nickel: nickels

Origin of nickel

Borrowed from German Nickel, first used in a text by the Swedish mineralogist Axel F. Cronstedt as an abbreviation of Kupfernickel (“a mineral containing copper and nickel”), from Kupfer (“copper”) + Nickel (“insignificant person, goblin”), originally nickname of Nikolaus (“Nicholas”), due to the deceptive silver colour of the relatively valueless ore. Compare cobalt as related to kobolds.

One of the variant spellings of Nichol, a Middle English vernacular form of the given name Nicholas.

Words formed from nickel

Phrases with nickel

13 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with nickel

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nickel

What does nickel mean?
Nickel means a silvery elemental metal with an atomic number of 28 and symbol Ni.
What is nickel in Hindi?
Nickel in Hindi is रूपक (rūpak), निकल (nikal). See Nickel meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is nickel?
Nickel can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce nickel?
Nickel is pronounced /ˈnɪk.əl/.
What is the plural of nickel?
The plural of nickel is nickels.

Words near nickel in the dictionary

  1. nickase
  2. nickases
  3. nicked
  4. nicked off
  5. nicked up
  6. nickel
  7. nickel and dime
  8. nickel and dimed
  9. nickel and dimes
  10. nickel and diming
  11. nickel back

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nickel (page history and authors); Nickel (page history and authors); nickel (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nickel (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); നിക്കൽ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); nickel (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nickel (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nickel (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nickel (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-us-nickel.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Tesco250-nickel.wav.

Cite this entry: “nickel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nickel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.