ten-cent store

[ ten-sent, -sent ]

noun

1. five-and-ten ( def 1 ).

Word History and Origins

Origin of ten-cent store¹

An Americanism dating back to 1900–05

Example Sentences

Only once a little water-color set from the ten-cent store.

From Literature

He idled in the barber shop and purchased a few trifles at the ten-cent store.

From Literature

Shivering Negroes in overalls loitered before the windows of the ten-cent store.

From Literature

She was going to work in a ten-cent store and she did not want to work there.

From Literature

Lee Avenue cut right between them, and if you walked out of Camillo Junior High and followed Lee Avenue across Main Street, past MacClean’s Drug Store, Goldman’s Best Bakery, and the Five & Ten-Cent Store, through another block and past the Free Public Library, and down one more block, you’d come to my house—which my father had figured out was right smack in the middle of town.

From Literature