What Is a Five and Dime Store?

A variety store (also five and dime (historic), pound shop, or dollar store) is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, automotive parts, dry goods, hardware, home furnishings, and a selection of groceries.

What is a 5 and dime store?

: a retail store that carries a variety of chiefly inexpensive merchandise When I was a little girl you could still buy things at the five-and-dime.—

Why is it called a 5 and dime?

It may surprise many Americans who grew up at five-and-ten stores that the store name wasn't just meant to connote inexpensive merchandise. It was the store's rigid pricing policy: a nickel or dime would buy any item in the store.