Word.ws English Dictionary

ten a penny

ten a penny adjective: so common as to be practically or almost worthless.

Adjective

ten a penny (not comparable)

  1. (UK, idiomatic) So common as to be practically or almost worthless.
    • Near-synonyms: not worth a dime; see also Thesaurus:worthless
    • People with your skills are ten a penny these days.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see ten, a, penny: sold at ten (10) units per penny (1d or 1¢).

Synonyms of ten a penny

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of ten a penny

Origin of ten a penny

With literal origins; now usually in the figuratively extended sense.

Questions about ten a penny

What does ten a penny mean?
Ten a penny means so common as to be practically or almost worthless.
What part of speech is ten a penny?
Ten a penny is an adjective.

Words near ten a penny in the dictionary

  1. temulent
  2. temulentive
  3. temulently
  4. temulin
  5. ten
  6. ten a penny
  7. ten bagger
  8. ten baggers
  9. Ten Commandments
  10. Ten Days of Repentance
  11. ten foot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ten a penny (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-ten a penny.ogg.

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