Word.ws English Dictionary

penny ante

penny ante noun: a small stake in gambling.

Noun

penny ante (uncountable)

  1. A small stake in gambling.
  2. Poker played for small stakes.
    • A few aging men tiptoed in [...] men who had been Bert's companions at drinking or pennyante while the world passed them by.1949, Dorothy M. Johnson, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; in Indian Country, London: Corgi, 1961, page 90
  3. A small-scale business transaction.

Origin of penny ante

From penny + ante.

Questions about penny ante

What does penny ante mean?
Penny ante means a small stake in gambling.
What part of speech is penny ante?
Penny ante is a noun.

Words near penny ante in the dictionary

  1. Pennsylvania sedge
  2. Pennsylvania sedges
  3. Pennsylvanian
  4. Pennsylvanians
  5. penny
  6. penny ante
  7. penny arcade
  8. penny arcades
  9. penny auction
  10. penny auctions
  11. penny bank

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penny ante (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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