two-dollar adj.
1. expensive.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Shorty McCabe 132: I’ve stopped at lots of two-dollar houses that would have looked like Bowery lodgings alongside of that stable. | |
| World of Jimmy Breslin (1968) 194: A two-dollar bum typewriting non-novels. |
2. (US) second-rate [var. on two-cent adj.].
| in Damon Runyon (1992) 15: In my husband’s movie he is a two dollar bum. | |
| (con. 1972) Circle of Six 61: I was now given the plain facts: my wife—the job—was a two-dollar whore. |
In compounds
(US) any language considered ‘difficult’ or ‘intellectual’, most likely by a speaker who claims to despise such locutions.
 | Century Mag. (N.Y.) 68: He hated what he called ‘two-dollar words’ and ‘high hat’ manners [DA]. | |
| I Can Get It For You Wholesale 334: When it comes to slinging the five-dollar words, I’m as good as any lawyer. | |
| Ball of Fire [film script] I’m gonna use some of those two-dollar words hollering my papers. | |
| Parm Me 115: Five-dollar words she’s using! | |
| ‘Raw, Medium, and Well Done’ in Blue Ribbon Western June 🌐 You may have picked up a load of five-and-ten buck words since I saw you last, but you and me was born on the same side of the tracks. | |
| Harder They Fall (1971) 99: All them five-dollar expressions, nobody knows what you’re talkin’ about. | |
| in Law Unto Themselves 93: You guys are always talkin’ in those fancy six-bit words like ‘conscience.’. |