two cents

English

Alternative forms

$0.02 (informal), 2¢ (rare)

Pronunciation

Audio (General Australian): (file)

Noun

two cents pl (plural only)

(idiomatic, colloquial) One's opinion or thoughts.
Synonyms: (US) two Abe Lincolns, (UK) two pennies' worth, (UK) tuppence worth, (UK) two penn'orth

That's just my two cents, you can believe what you like.
(US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, idiomatic, colloquial) A nearly worthless amount, alluding to placing a copper penny on each of the eyelids of a pauper's or slave's body before burial.
Synonym: (UK) farthing

That car won't last a week, it's not worth two cents.

Usage notes

Two cents and two cents' worth have displaced native two pennies' worth in England even though the cent is not a unit of currency there.

Derived terms

two cents' worth

Translations

one's opinion

French: mes deux cents (fr) (literally “my two cents”), grain de sel (fr) m (literally “grain of salt”)
Hungarian: vélemény (hu), magánvélemény (hu)
Italian: a mio modesto parere (literally “in my humble opinion”)
Polish: swoje trzy grosze nvir pl
Russian: пять копе́ек f pl (pjatʹ kopéjek, literally “five copecks”), ле́пта (ru) f (lépta)
Spanish: granito de arena m pl (literally “little grain of sand”)

worthless amount

Danish: flad femøre c, klink c
Hungarian: fillér (hu), fitying (hu), fabatka (hu), lyukas garas
Italian: quattro soldi (literally “four coins”), una lira (literally “an (Italian) lira”), una sega (literally “a wank's worth”) (vulgar), un cazzo (literally “a dick's worth”) (vulgar)
Latin: terū̆ncius (literally “three-twelfth of a coin”)
Persian: دو زار (do zâr), دو زار و ده شاهی (do zâr o dah šâhi)
Polish: grosze nvir pl
Russian: не сто́ить вы́еденного яйца́ impf (ne stóitʹ výjedennovo jajcá, literally “to be not worth an eaten egg”), не сто́ить ло́маного гроша́ impf (ne stóitʹ lómanovo grošá, literally “to be not worth a broken half-copeck coin”)

See also

for my money

Further reading

my two cents on Wikipedia.Wikipedia