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two-bit
[too-bit]
adjective
costing twenty-five cents.
inferior or unimportant; small-time.
a two-bit actor.
two-bit
adjective
worth next to nothing; cheap
Word History and Origins
Origin of two-bit1
Word History and Origins
Origin of two-bit1
Example Sentences
By that point, The Band was playing two-bit theatres and dance halls — a far cry from their stature more than a decade earlier — and Manuel’s alcohol and drug abuse had returned with a vengeance.
Nobody has been able to make any sense of either of these two-bit wonders.
“I, for one, am tired of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of greed trampling on our way of life.”
"We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler, masquerading as a big shot," De Niro said, describing the former president as a "two-bit playboy" who had been "lying his way into the tabloids."
Their hero and role model is Viktor Orbán, the two-bit Hungarian despot who wrecked his country’s democracy, allied his country with Putin, and drove every company out of business that refused to bankroll his party and bribe his sorry butt.
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When To Use
Two-bit means inferior, cheap, worthless, or insignificant.The term is perhaps most commonly used to negatively describe a person considered to be a small-time hack—someone who’s not good at what they do due to having a very low level of talent or skill. It’s especially used as an insult applied to people who have a high opinion of themselves to call them out as being far inferior in reality.Describing something as two-bit means it’s low-quality. This is especially applied to products.This sense of two-bit is based on its literal meaning: costing 25 cents. The term two bits means 25 cents. It’s based on the sense of the word bit that refers to one eighth of a U.S. dollar, or 12 ½ cents. However, monetary amounts counted in bits were only ever given in multiples of two, as in two bits and six bits. Two bits became an informal way of referring to the value of the 25-cent coin known as the quarter. It then came to be used in a general way meaning a small amount. It’s still sometimes used this way, especially in negative statements, as in That piece of junk isn’t worth two bits or That job is like a vacation—I’d do it for two bits.Two-bit is always used before the noun it describes.Example: That two-bit manager is running this company into the ground.
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