Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a small store where articles are all priced at five or ten cents.

[1880		in Sat. Eve. Post 10 Feb. 1940 23/3: Woolworth Bros. 5 & 10 Cent Store [DA]].
1907		‘O. Henry’ Trimmed Lamp (1916) 115: Did you ever notice me [...] peering in the window of the five-and-ten?
1919		in Columbia Press Yank Talk 6: Why are you only a 5 and 10 cent store girl?
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 103: Did you buy it at a five and ten, Iky?
1932		J. Dixon Free To Love 30: Plenty of girls earn their living in the 5-and-10’s.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 208: The chain store, and the five and dime.
1938		Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 22 Oct. 10/5: Folks continue to fall in Frankie’s five and dime.
1942		N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 49: You never wanted to help out wagon-bouncing ’r coppin’ by the five-’n-dime.
1947		‘F. Bonnamy’ Self Portrait of Murder (1951) 169: Her emerald fakes from Murphy’s – Washington’s biggest Five-and-Ten.
1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 66: Sometimes I see little kids around here with guns they bought in the five-and-ten.
1958		T. Capote ‘A Christmas Memory’ in Breakfast at Tiffany’s 152: We can’t afford the made-in-Japan splendours at the five-and-dime.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 20: Buddy was caught ringing a cash register in a five-and-dime store.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 45: Our god has no mother, no father, no manger in the five and ten.
1972		G.V. Higgins Friends of Eddie Coyle 66: There’s a grocery store there [...] and a five-and-ten.
1977		A. Brooke Last Toke 28: ‘Ain’t no five an’ dime [...] Here–’ she moved her hips ‘– you all the time pay top dollar’.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 1380: There had been no Christmas paper at the five-and-ten.
1986		R. Campbell In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 85: Last I heard, she was working as a salesgirl in a five-and-dime.
1993		(con. 1969) N.L. Russell Suicide Charlie 36: Rather than a lifetime of punching the cash register at the local five & dime, they had taken the army up on its offer to let them see the world.
2000		N.K. Richardson Vampires and Oz 54: Anyway, I had landed a job at the local Five and Dime as a check-out clerk.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 18: A nearby five-and-dime sold various brands of X-ray eyeglasses.