Green’s Dictionary of Slang

nine-dollar bill n.

1. a fake, a second-rate imitation.

1947

B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 11: Not a nine-dollar bill like Golden Boy — no violinists with brittle hands, no undigested poetry.

2. a homosexual.

1965

Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 32: nine-dollar bill (n.): An unredeemable homosexual, being three times as queer as a three-dollar bill.

In phrases