What does "five-and-dime" mean?

A store selling inexpensive items.

Five-and-dime

Common synonyms include: dime store, dollar store, nickel and dime, pound shop, ten-cent store, variety store.

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
A store selling inexpensive items. US
"I got my first real six-string / Bought it at the five-and-dime / Played it 'til my fingers bled / Was the summer of '69"
2
A two pair, composed of fives and tens. slang
3
A five and a ten as a starting hand in Texas hold 'em. slang
4
The 5th Battalion 10th Marines, a US artillery battalion. US, slang
"Admiral Fitzwallace: A three hour patrol of the no-fly with the five-and-dime."

"I got my first real six-string / Bought it at the five-and-dime / Played it 'til my fingers bled / Was the summer of '69"

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.