ten a penny
"ten-a-penny" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ten a penny” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - So common as to be practically or almost worthless.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ten-a-penny · ten a penny · English
ten a penny · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ten a penny |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ten a penny” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ten a penny is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for ten a penny, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: With literal origins; now usually in the figuratively extended sense. The correct English form is ten a penny, spelled T-E-N- -A- -P-E-N-N-Y.
Definition
- 1So common as to be practically or almost worthless.
- 2Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see ten, a, penny: sold at ten (10) units per penny (1d or 1¢).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ten a penny appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Near-synonyms: not worth a dime; see also Thesaurus:worthless
People with your skills are ten a penny these days.
Etymology
With literal origins; now usually in the figuratively extended sense.
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.