Word.ws English Dictionary

nickelled and dimed

nickelled and dimed is the simple past and past participle of nickel and dime.

Meaning of nickel and dime

Verb

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

  1. (US, colloquial, idiomatic) To charge, or be charged, several unexpected small amounts of money, often in the form of fees, taxes, or related expenses to a venture, which when taken as a whole add up to a significant unexpected cost.
    • I got nickel and dimed to death by the phone company's sneaky extra charges.
  2. (US, colloquial, figuratively, idiomatic) To wear down in small increments; to quibble or obsess endlessly with (someone) over trifles.

See all 5 meanings of nickel and dime

Questions about nickelled and dimed

What is nickelled and dimed the simple past and past participle of?
Nickelled and dimed is the simple past and past participle of nickel and dime.

Words near nickelled and dimed in the dictionary

  1. nickelized
  2. nickelizes
  3. nickelizing
  4. Nickell
  5. nickelled
  6. nickelled and dimed
  7. nickelled-and-dimed
  8. nickelless
  9. nickellike
  10. nickelling
  11. nickelling and diming

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nickelled and dimed (page history and authors); nickel and dime (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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Cite this entry: “nickelled and dimed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nickelled_and_dimed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.