ten a penny
1
8.6
- idiom
- /tɛn ə ˈpɛni/
- UK
:
muy común
- Lasses like these are ten a penny.
Examples
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In today's market, low-quality smartphones are ten a penny.
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But to be honest, monkeys are ten a penny.
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Oh, those girls are ten a penny you've got so much more.
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Dogs are ten a penny, aren't they?
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Ten a penny, mate.
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Lmfao, dream on fellas, but in all seriousness, tacos are good and tend to be well stocked in good stores, and leg rigs are ten a penny.
Blog text (16) -
With so many fast-food restaurants around, cheap burgers are ten a penny.
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In this city, rental apartments have become ten a penny due to oversupply.
Synonyms
12
3.2
Very common and not special or valuable
1
7.0
Having little or no value
Very common and not worth much
It has very little value
Antonyms
How Common
Surface Forms
Morphology
ten + a + penny
The phrase literally evokes 'ten [items] for a penny', so a learner who knows 'ten' and 'penny' can plausibly infer cheapness or abundance from the constituent meanings. However, the specific idiomatic extension to 'very common/not valuable' and the fixed British phrasing ('ten a penny') require a pragmatic jump and are not fully compositional, making it only partially predictable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Ten a penny comes from old market talk; one popular story says something was so common and cheap you could buy ten for a penny. So, ten a penny means 'very common' or 'not valuable'.