not worth a plug nickel

adj

"not-worth-a-plug-nickel" is a 19-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“not worth a plug nickel” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
23
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having no or almost no value; worthless.

Corpus desk

Index EN-not-worth-a-plug-nickel · not worth a plug nickel · English

not worth a plug nickel · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 23 letters
  • VOW-6 6 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "N" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for not worth a plug nickel
PropertyValue
Headwordnot worth a plug nickel
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters23
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “not worth a plug nickel” in English

not worth a plug nickelranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

not worth a plug nickel is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Having no or almost no value; worthless.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for not worth a plug nickel, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is not worth a plug nickel, spelled N-O-T- -W-O-R-T-H- -A- -P-L-U-G- -N-I-C-K-E-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Having no or almost no value; worthless.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how not worth a plug nickel appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. In the screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr., and David Rayfiel, Turner very early on stumbles upon the existence of a kind of super-C.I.A. within the C.I.A., after which his life is not worth a plug nickel.

Synonyms

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "not worth a plug nickel"?
"not worth a plug nickel" is spelled N-O-T- -W-O-R-T-H- -A- -P-L-U-G- -N-I-C-K-E-L.
What does "not worth a plug nickel" mean?
As an adjective, "not worth a plug nickel" means: Having no or almost no value; worthless.
What language does "not worth a plug nickel" come from?
"not worth a plug nickel" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list