Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
ten-cent piece

ten-cent piece

1.7
A coin worth ten cents, like a dime
  • noun
  • /ˈtɛnˌsɛnt piːs/
  • US
translation icon : diez centavos
  • The vending machine only accepted coins, so I used a ten-cent piece to buy a snack.

Examples

  • She dropped a ten-cent piece into the charity donation box.

  • That is what he called it, their natural setting, and I felt like the ten-cent piece I paid to get in the hall to hear his lecture was one of the best I ever spent.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • I drew a ten-cent piece from my pocket and proceeded to indulge.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Coins clinked against the concrete sill: two American nickels and a single ten-cent piece.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • I found a ten-cent piece on the sidewalk while walking to the store.

Synonyms

dime
vsten-cent piece
  • US
218 1.0

A United States coin worth ten cents

is the value-descriptive name for the same coin

Surface Forms

ten-cent piece singular
ten-cent pieces plural
ten cent pieces plural
ten cent piece singular
dime singular

Morphology

ten-cent + piece

The phrase is compositionally built from a quantity + currency unit ('ten-cent') and a general noun ('piece' = an individual item), so its meaning 'a coin worth ten cents' is directly inferable if the learner knows the constituents. The use of 'piece' to mean a coin is a common, cross-linguistic nominalization pattern (e.g., 'ten-cent coin'/'dime'), making the expression immediately comprehensible to B1 learners.

Etymology

Ten-cent piece is a literal name for a coin: ten shows its value, cent is a small unit of money, and piece means a coin. In the United States this coin is often called a 'dime', so ten-cent piece simply means 'a coin worth ten cents'.