Word.ws English Dictionary

nickelling and diming

nickelling and diming is the present participle and gerund 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 nickelling and diming

What is nickelling and diming the present participle and gerund of?
Nickelling and diming is the present participle and gerund of nickel and dime.

Words near nickelling and diming in the dictionary

  1. nickelled and dimed
  2. nickelled-and-dimed
  3. nickelless
  4. nickellike
  5. nickelling
  6. nickelling and diming
  7. nickelling-and-diming
  8. nickellotharmeyerite
  9. Nickells
  10. nickelocene
  11. nickelocenes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nickelling and diming (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: “nickelling and diming.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nickelling_and_diming. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.