Link Centre Dictionary

nickel

nic·kel

UK/ˈnɪk.əl/ US/ˈnɪkʌl/ fairly common slang uk us
noun (3) verb (1)

noun

1.
2.

a United States coin worth one twentieth of a dollar

3.

five dollars worth of a drug

  • “a nickel bag of drugs”
  • “a nickel deck of heroin”
Synonyms

verb

1.

plate with nickel

  • “nickel the plate”

Origin

Borrowed from German Nickel, first used in a text by the Swedish mineralogist Axel F. Cronstedt as an abbreviation of Kupfernickel (“a mineral containing copper and nickel”), from Kupfer (“copper”) + Nickel (“insignificant person, goblin”), originally nickname of Nikolaus (“Nicholas”), due to the deceptive silver colour of the relatively valueless ore. Compare cobalt as related to kobolds.

Phrases

  • antimonial nickel
  • arsenical nickel
  • drop a nickel
  • false copper
  • hot nickel
  • if I had a nickel for every time
  • nickel and dime
  • nickel back
  • nickel bag

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Parts

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.