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Small change   /smɔl tʃeɪndʒ/   Listen
Small change

noun
1.
A trifling sum of money.  Synonyms: chickenfeed, chump change.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Small change" Quotes from Famous Books



... five bob, enough to prove that he was kept in mind, enough to keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. 'But what would you have?' thought Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small change. For a man in Morris's position, at war with all society, and conducting, with the hand of inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. 'But then,' asked the hell-like voice, 'how long is ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... nature must win the particular little battles which it is fitted to wage. When a conscienceless mind is buttressed by a pugnacious temperament then houses and land, and cattle and maidservants, and such-like, the small change of ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... the true ground by this inquiry, you bestow upon her such little compliments as you can spare and which are, as it were, the small change, the sous, the liards ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... to suppose that such fine distinctions as physiology must assume lie beyond the limits of what is conceivable by the human mind. An infinitely small change of position on the part of a point, or in the relations of the parts of a segment of a curve to one another, suffices to alter the law of its whole path, and so in like manner an infinitely small influence exercised ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... to the top of the steps and sat down beside him, watching in deep and silent interest. When the string finally gave way she offered her lap to receive the contents of the pouch. Two five-dollar gold pieces rolled out first, then a handful of small change, a black ring evidently whittled out of a rubber button and lastly a watch-fob ornament. It was a little compass, set in something which ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Provencal, that I might compare them with the modern Patois: but I can find no person to give me the least information on the subject. The shades of ignorance, sloth, and stupidity, are impenetrable. Almost every word of the Patois may still be found in the Italian, Spanish, and French languages, with a small change in the pronunciation. Cavallo, signifying a horse in Italian and Spanish is called cavao; maison, the French word for a house, is changed into maion; aqua, which means water in Spanish, the Nissards call daigua. To express, what a slop is here! they say acco fa lac aqui, which is a sentence composed ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... From the handful of small change, she selected some pennies which she slipped inside of her glove, and dropping the remainder into her pocket, left the building, and walked on toward Union Square. Absorbed in grave reflections, and oppressed by some vague foreboding of impending ill, dim, intangible and unlocalized—she ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... went to the stairfoot, and called to Aunt M'riar, upstairs, making ribbons into rosettes, and giving Dolly the snippings. He never took his eye off the coins in his palm, as though to maintain them as integral factors of the business in hand. "Got any small change, M'riar?" said he. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... motion of her feet seemed not circular at all.... Then the bell was answered, and he delivered into Withers' hands one, two tins of corned beef and a round ox-tongue. He put the basket on his head and came down the street again, shrilly whistling. If Diva had had any reasonably small change in her pocket, she would assuredly have given him some small share in it. Lacking this, she trundled home with all speed, and began cutting out roses with swift and ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... matched in the living and breathing world. For in Shakspeare's characters, as in his language, there is surplusage, superabundance; the measure is heaped and running over. From his sheer wealth, he is often the most undramatic of writers. He is so frequently greater than his occasion, he has no small change to suit emergencies, and we have guineas in place of groats. Romeo is more than a mortal lover, and Mercutio more than a mortal wit; the kings in the Shakspearian world are more kingly than earthly sovereigns; Rosalind's laughter was never heard save in the Forest of Arden. His madmen ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... slight improvement in vision. She had always been able to distinguish sunlight from darkness, but with renewed strength had come the power dimly to discern dark objects in a strong light, and even that small change for the better had brought unspeakable gladness to her heart. She said she owed it all to me. A faint pink had spread itself in her cheeks and a plumpness had been imparted to her form which gave to her ethereal beauty a touch of the material. Nor was this ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... once not in the mood for the small change of conversation. Some weighty thought possessed him that gave his eye a remote quality even when he seemed to be sharing the general attention in the conversation, and it was as much resentment at the summons from his abstraction and his mood as a general disinclination to laugh at a wretch's misery ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... exposure, which was no better than the first. Had there been time, I would have made a third to be sure, for plates are no object when a study is at all worth while. As a rule each succeeding effort enables you to make some small change for the better, and you must figure on always having enough to lose one through a defective plate or ill luck in development, and yet end with a picture that will serve ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... was introduced by the president of the club, who, quoting from the Mark Twain autobiography, recalled the day when the distinguished writer came to New York with $3 in small change in his pockets and a $10 bill ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the Mosquito Man did much to induce the well-to-do citizens to subscribe according to their means. He still tells with relish of the club of women which took up a collection, after his talk, and presented him with two dollars, in small change. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... of "bits" of silver advisedly, for the Malagasy take the simplest and most literal way of making small change; they clip their dollars into little pieces of various sizes, and therewith transact the business that in other lands is settled with pence. As these clippings are not very accurate, however, they weigh the pieces, and for this ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... anywhere, where the water is quite deep, and tosses in a bit of money, while the darkey boys—who are sure to be all ready when a visitor is standing on a pier—dive for it. It's a lot of fun to see them do this, and Rectus and I had already chucked a good deal of small change into the harbor, and had seen it come up again, some of it before it got to the bottom. These dives are called "small," because the darkeys want to put the thing mildly. They couldn't coax anybody down to the water to ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... great Buddha on his throne, and before him a lacquer tray, on which my faithful sailor servant places any small change he may find lying loose in the pockets of my clothes. Madame Prune, whose mind is much swayed by mysticism, at once supposed herself before a regular altar; in the gravest manner possible she addressed ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... shall put him in charge, and tell him to follow us to Mbango's village; then we four shall start off light, and hunt our way south, travelling as fast as we can, and carrying as many strings of beads, by way of small change, as we can stuff into our pockets and fasten ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... he said. "We spend our lives robbing flowers from cemeteries, keeping our souls in our trousers pockets along with the other small change. Hullo!" ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... give our love to whoever loves us? A fine parcel of paupers we should all be, wasting our inheritance in pitiful small change! Shall I give a thousand beggars a half hour's happiness, or shall I make one soul rich his whole ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... I heard of remains of houses situated at a great height, where it is extremely cold and sterile. At first I imagined that these buildings had been places of refuge, built by the Indians on the first arrival of the Spaniards; but I have since been inclined to speculate on the probability of a small change ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... order to teach me to be careful my father placed a little small change in my charge and required me to keep an account of it. He also entrusted me with the duty of winding his valuable gold watch for him. He overlooked the risk of damage in his desire to train me to a sense of responsibility. When we went out together for our morning walk he would ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... while he was saying this, was taking out some small change from his pockets to give to the children. He gave a small coin ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... deal of small change is useful in a State, and tends to reduce the price of small articles. Perhaps it would not be amiss to coin three, more pieces of silver, one of the value of five tenths, or half a dollar, one of the value of two tenths, which ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... profit of it all? The old order changeth yielding place to new, To me small change, and this the Counter-change Of custom beating on the self-same bar— Change out of chop. Ah me! the talk, the tip, The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit, The forged solicitude for petty wants More petty still than they,—all these I loathe, Learning they lie ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... is such that an appreciable alteration in its price has only a slight effect upon the quantity demanded, the demand is said to be inelastic. Conversely, when a small change in price greatly alters the quantity demanded, we call the demand elastic. In the former case, it is worth nothing, a larger aggregate sum of money will be spent upon the thing when its price is high than when it is low, while the opposite is true in the latter case. This distinction ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... indeed, in any shape, that could be termed political news. In these matters, its conductor had to say, with Canning's knife-grinder: 'Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir.' Not that the political world was unfruitful in affairs of moment; it was a time of no small change, interest, and excitement. In the period referred to, the Grenville ministry had endeavoured to burden the American colonies, by means of the stamp-duties, with some of the debt contracted in the late war. Thereupon, immense discontent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... have killed the fool in a fury, but now he felt as weak as a child. He went quietly to the bench, took up his overcoat, put it on without a word, and went out of the hut. He did not find the forester in the next room; there was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change out of his pocket and put them on the table for his night's lodging, the candle, and the trouble he had given. Coming out of the hut he saw nothing but forest all round. He walked at hazard, not knowing which way to turn out of the hut, to the right or to the left. Hurrying there ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... full value for the day of conversion at any rate, if not afterwards, under the new standard of energy, and to be replaceable by an ordinary token coinage as time went on. The old computation by Lions and the values of the small change of daily life were therefore to suffer ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of talent, if they did not turn it all into small change. And you, reader, know as well as I do, that when a sovereign or a shilling is once broken into, the change scatters and dispends itself in a way quite unaccountable. Still coppers are useful in household bills; and when Waife was ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Clifford, dropping his book. "Why, Bertha, I was with him, actually with him, when he went into the country post office and asked the woman if she would let him have small change for ten shillings, and he found he hadn't the half-sovereign then, but would pay her when he didn't see her again! And then he said if she wouldn't do that, he'd like to buy some stamps, and asked if she'd show him some ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... early August, hesitated before he rang the bell. He glanced over his shoulder at the hot, dusty street where a swarm of hot, dusty children were shrilling and shrieking, or staring at him round-eyed, dived into his pockets, fished up a handful of small change, whistled to insure their greater attention, and flung the coin among them. While they were snatching at the money like a flock of pigeons over a handful of grain, the elderly gentleman rang the bell. ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... gave Agashka a ruble!" When he reached the ground, the boy joined the crowd which was following me. I went out into the street: various descriptions of people followed me, and asked for money. I distributed all my small change, and entered an open shop with the request that the shopkeeper would change a ten-ruble bill for me. And then the same thing happened as at the Lyapinsky house. A terrible confusion ensued. Old women, noblemen, peasants, and children crowded into the shop with outstretched ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... a memorandum on her desk, gravely searched through her portemonnaie, found some small coin and a two-dollar bill, then as gravely took two of the bills and handed him the ten, the two, and the small change. "More than sufficient by just twelve dollars and fifteen cents," she quietly said, "provided it be understood that you are to send me a memorandum of any and all errors detected, and I shall be here early to-morrow ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... mad waltzes to the measure of the wheels. He believed that he had a star. He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and sought to propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to small change; in which method of courting her he was perfectly serious. He absolutely rejected coppers. They "crossed his luck." Nor can we say that he is not an authority on this point: the Goddess certainly does ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... laconic answer. Another train was due in ten minutes and there was no time to waste. She opened a dainty leather purse, while the lawyer paid his debt from a pocketful of small change. Twenty cents at once. That was luck. A moment later John was sprinting back at ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... us be off!" Ledantec repeated, leaving go of me, and at that time I paid attention to what he said, and, after throwing some small change onto the floor, I followed him, to make him understand, when he should be quite sober, that he saw before him a poor Albino prostitute, who ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... as she was concerned, Emil was already gone. They couldn't meet any more. There was nothing for them to say. They had spent the last penny of their small change; there was nothing left but gold. The day of love-tokens was past. They had now only their hearts to give each other. And Emil being gone, what was her life to be like? In some ways, it would be easier. She would not, at least, live in perpetual fear. If Emil ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... I am a little horror-struck, when we leave, to see Halicarnassus hold out his hand as if about to give money to this brave and British soldier, and scarcely less so to see our soldier receive it quietly. But I need not be, for my observation should have taught me that small change—fees I believe it is called—circulates universally in Canada. Out doors and in, it is all one. Everybody takes a fee, and is not ashamed. You fee at the falls, and you fee at the steps. You fee the church, and here we have feed the army; and if we should call ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... man, I am; I ain't got no watch, I ain't got no money and I can't get no work. Now you're a rich man. You've got a very 'andsome watch—I see it—and lots more at 'ome, I dessay. Well, you makes me a present o' that watch, that's what you do; and any small change that you've got about yer. You do that and I'll let yer ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... too true! She had not been willing to pay, except with smiles and pretty speeches, the small change, and it seemed that was not enough. She had not been willing to pay the price of a good position in her world which she wanted, nor Snowden's price for mercy to her father. Of course not that! But now she must pay somehow for what she got: for ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... fair salary and respectable connections, was in the habit of patronizing a fashionable restaurant, partaking of sumptuous lunches and dinners, and evading full payment, under pretence that he had forgotten his pocket-book, or had omitted, in the hurry of business, to provide himself with small change, etc. Thus, if his check called for one dollar he would pay sixty cents, but invariably forgot upon the next, or any succeeding day, to 'settle' the balance due of forty cents. This 'little game,' so profitable to himself, was carried on for some time triumphantly, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... and almost daily drain of small change for liquor, had nearly exhausted all the money in the house long before the winter was over. The accommodating landlord seemed to discover, as by instinct, this condition of things, and encouraged Warburton to ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... adher'd; And still its love to household cares, By a shrill voice at noon, declares, Warning the cookmaid not to burn That roast meat, which it cannot turn. The groaning-chair began to crawl, Like an huge snail, half up the wall; There stuck aloft in public view, And with small change, a pulpit grew. The porringers, that in a row Hung high, and made a glitt'ring show, To a less noble substance chang'd, Were now but leathern buckets rang'd. The ballads, pasted on the wall, Of Joan[2] of France, and English Mall,[3] Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood, The little Children in the Wood, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... smoothly. We have found means to get small change in large quantities, and I now know personally most of the police officials who ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... and promptly gave the youth a fifty-cent piece and a lot of small change. With his bananas in one hand and his money in another Sammy retired to a distance, to count his change and make sure it ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.

... correction made to the longitude, 166 deg. 58' east. It will shortly be mentioned that when that correction was made the navigation section say it was thought to involve a minor movement of only 2.1 miles or 10 minutes of longitude. Despite the very small change that this could make to the track and distance between the two points a re-calculation was made and entered into the computer programme as 188.5 deg. (grid) and the distance 336 miles. Compared with the other figures the difference seems minimal ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... that had been handed over. My father explained to me that immediately after the outbreak of the War, specie, including even the nickels and copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, and the people had been utilising for the small change necessary for current operations the postage stamps, a use which, in connection with the large percentage of destruction, was profitable to the government, but extravagant for the community. A little later, the postal department was considerate enough ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... the tree. The servant—a colored man—told the judge that there was no occasion for cutting down the tree, but just to back the buggy. Pleased at the good sense of the fellow, Judge Marshall told him that he would leave him something at the inn hard by, where he intended to stop, having then no small change. In due time the man applied, and a dollar was handed him. Being asked if he knew who it was that gave him the dollar, he replied: "No, sir: I concluded he was a gentleman by his leaving the money, but I think he is the biggest fool I ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... length, satiate and a little weary—drawn by curiosity besides—he rose, endowed Pete lavishly with a handful of small change (something over fifty cents; all he had in the world aside from his cherished five dollars), and with an impressive air of the most thorough-paced sophistication (nodding genially to the doorkeeper en passant) slowly ascended to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... Soc.' 1857 page 236. Mr. Hill remarks to me, in his letter, on the colour of the legs of the feral birds in Jamaica.), and has diminished in size; the legs are black, whereas the legs of the aboriginal African bird are said to be grey. This small change is worth notice on account of the often-repeated statement that all feral animals invariably revert in every character to their ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... civility to tell the Sahib, with my kind love, that we are two soldiers here whom he never met and never heard of, but the cipaye is a broth of a boy, and I am a broth of a boy myself; and if we don't get a full meal of meat, and a turban, and slippers, and the value of a gold mohur in small change as a matter of convenience, bedad, my friend, I could lay my finger on a garden where there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... luckier," Tom contended. "Some won, but most lost, an' just as good men lost. It was almost like a lot of boys scramblin' on the sidewalk for a handful of small change. Not that some didn't have far-seein'. But just take your pa, for example. He come of good Down East stock that's got business instinct an' can add to what it's got. Now suppose your pa had developed a weak heart, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... illustration: the labourer out of work understands now more than his own particular misfortunes from that cause. He is discovering that unemployment is a world-wide evil, which spreads like an infectious disease, and may be treated accordingly. It is no small change to note, for in such ways, all unawares, the people fall into the momentous habit of thinking about abstract ideas which would have been beyond the range of their forefathers' intellectual power; and with the ideas, their sentiments gain in dignity, because the newspapers, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... very sorry, but I have no small change—nothing but sovereigns and half crowns. Could any ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... a quarter," he murmured as he finally sat down on the edge of the bed and jingled the small change he had collected, "I'll have to go to ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... perhaps circuitously expresses it, go to walk on horseback on a donkey,—dar um passeio a cavallo n'um burro. The beggars, indeed, are numerous; but one's expenditures are always happily limited by the great scarcity of small change. A half-cent, however, will buy you blessings enough for a lifetime, and you can find an investment in almost any direction. You visit some church or cemetery; you ask a question or two of a lounger in a black cloak, with an air like an exiled Stuart, and, as you part, he detains ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... indigo, and 400 bags of cacao, every bag of the former being worth forty crowns, and each of the latter worth ten. These cacaos serve among the people of these parts both as food and money, being somewhat like almonds, yet not quite so pleasant, and pass in trade by way of small change, 150 of them being equal in value to a rial ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... in the Somali country as presents, and to pay for trifling purchases: like tobacco they serve for small change. The kind preferred by women and children is the "binnur," large and small white porcelain: the others are the red, white, green, and spotted twisted beads, round and oblong. Before entering a district the traveller ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... hotel-keeper in Glasgow, during a period of twenty-one years, Macindoe became insolvent, and was necessitated to abandon the concern. He returned to Paisley and resumed the loom, at the same time adding to his finances by keeping a small change-house, and taking part as an instrumental musician at the local concerts. He excelled in the use of the violin. Ingenious as a mechanic, and skilled in his original employment, he invented a machine for figuring on muslin, for which he received premiums from ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... receptacle he drew forth the complete uniform of a Uhlan lieutenant. "Turn your back for a little, Fraulein," he said softly. "I must make a small change in ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... one—which everybody can hear—between mind and mind: the other—of which very few are conscious, though it is the greater of the two—between instinct and instinct, the beast in man and woman. Often these two strata of conversation are contradictory. While mind and mind are passing the small change of convention, body and body say: Desire, Aversion, or, more often: Curiosity, Boredom, Disgust. The beast in man and woman, though tamed by centuries of civilization, and as cowed as the wretched lions in the tamer's cage, is always thinking ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... fact went so far as to say that he was hopelessly dull, that he had no subtlety of thought, no brightness, no conversation. These persons were no doubt ladies upon whom he had failed to lavish the exceedingly small change of compliment. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... and fell into such deep thought that he let his cigar go out. Evidently, a man in search of an idea. And, to all appearance, he found what he wanted on a sudden. In a hurry he paid his reckoning, and left his small change and his unfinished cigar on the table, and was off before the waiter could ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... don't know how much they pay you by the year to sit around here, but I doubt that it's as much as I pay my beaters for a week end of hunting. So obviously, even if I were for sale, the man who could afford the tab could pick you up with his small change." He ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole

... buffalo nickel, V nickel^, dime, disme^, mercury dime^, quarter, two bits, half dollar, dollar, silver dollar, Eisenhower dollar, Susan B. Anthony dollar^. precious metals, gold, silver, copper, bullion, ingot, nugget. petty cash, pocket money, change, small change, small coin, doit^, stiver^, rap, mite, farthing, sou, penny, shilling, tester, groat, guinea; rouleau^; wampum; good sum, round sum, lump sum; power of money, plum, lac of rupees. major coin, crown; minor coin. monetarist, monetary theory. [Science of coins] numismatics, chrysology^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... him. On the dressing table, together with a bunch of keys and some small change, lay a brown leather pocketbook. Evidently Sir Thomas did not share Lady Blunt's impression that the world was waiting for a chance to rob him as soon as his back ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse

... for that blanket and ten for them spurs. That's a hundred and four. 'Course I could git along without a new lid. Rope is three-fifty, and lid is ten. One hundred and seventeen dollars for four bits. Guess I'll make it a hundred and twenty. No use botherin' about small change. Gimme that ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... rabble like housewives feeding poultry. Willie Todd, the best man, who had never come out so strong in his life before, slipped through the back window, while the crowd, led on by Kitty McQueen, seethed in front, and making a bolt for it to the "'Sosh," was back in a moment with a handful of small change. "Dinna toss ower lavishly at first," the smith whispered me nervously, as we followed Jess and ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... day being in need of some small change called down-stairs to the cook and enquired: "Mary, have you any 'coppers' down there?" "Yes, mum, I've two; but if you please, mum, they're both me ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey

... noise; it was very hot, her jacket had come unbuttoned, and showed a bare white very well furnished bust. She smiled to M. Thiers, who pulled his horse up short, turned back to thrust a handful of small change into the young woman's palm, and started off again full tear, as if he had had an electric shock, jumping the fallen trees with a resolution and energy which I had never ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you have all men's hearts and purses." If we would only let nature act kindly, free from affectation and artifice, the results on social good humour and happiness would be incalculable. The little courtesies which form the small change of life, may separately appear of little intrinsic value, but they acquire their importance from repetition and accumulation. They are like the spare minutes, or the groat a day, which proverbially produce such momentous ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... of smoke while he did a little mental calculation. Then he took his twisted-leather purse and emptied it into his saucer. He investigated all his pockets and added eighty-five cents in small change. Then he gravely began to count, not disdaining three pennies in the pile. "I've got seventy-five dollars in the bank," he said. "Add ninety dollars salary, and you have a hundred and sixty-five. Add six dollars and eighty-seven cents, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... money around with me to sech places as this here, but what little I've got ain't quite divided up enough to be handy; I don't mind gettin' a fifty into new Gover'ment greenbacks myself. My wife 'n' me are countin' on stayin' on here a consid'able of a spell, maybe, an' small change is handiest.' ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... characters, seals in black and red, and an indication of value in ancient Japanese characters. I do not learn whether notes of considerable amount are still used in Japan; but Sir R. Alcock speaks of banknotes for small change from 30 to 500 cash and more, as in general use ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... is of bad omen, and for the dried fig to take the place of the green fig, and for raisins to be made from the grapes. For all these things are changes from a former state into other states; not a destruction, but a certain fixed economy and administration. Such is going away from home and a small change: such is death, a greater change, not from the state which now is to that which is not, but to that which is not now. Shall I then no longer exist? You will not exist, but you will be something else, of which the world now has need; for you also ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... into the bank to get a bill changed, and there was no one to attend to him but Mr. Goodwyn, who had to come out of his room for a minute and count out a lot of small change." ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster

... currency, and especially the scarcity of small change, a scarcity so peculiarly distressing to the poorer classes, strongly recommend the carrying into immediate effect the resolution already entered into concerning the establishment of a mint. Measures have been taken pursuant to that resolution ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington

... left him on the Clyde, and went on about my work. But I went back to Dunoon as often as I could, as I got a day or a night to make the journey. At first there was small change of progress. John would come downstairs about the middle of the day, moving slowly and painfully. And he was listless; there was no life in ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... his pocket and pulled out all his money, a handful of small change. His face grew bitter, his last dollar was broken ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... possess an independent circulation sufficient to lower the temperature so that glaciers could form. This may have been owing to the shallow sea bottom south of Cape Horn having been above the surface of the water, the channel having since been formed by a comparatively small change in the ocean's level. For, while considering this subject, it is well to keep in mind that whenever the western continent extended to the antarctic circle it prevented the independent circulation of the Southern Ocean waters, consequently during such times ice periods could not have ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... ambiguity in the word principle, as employed by Reid. The removal of a solitary word may cast a luminous ray over a whole body of philosophy: "If we had called the infinite the indefinite," says Condillac, in his Traite des Sensations, "by this small change of a word we should have avoided the error of imagining that we have a positive idea of infinity, from whence so many false reasonings have been carried on, not only by metaphysicians, but even by geometricians." The word reason has been used with different meanings by ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... wanting in America for small change. We have none but those of the King of England. After one silver or gold medal is struck from the dies, for the person to be honoured, they may be usefully employed in striking copper money, or ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... that, however, you had to acquire the mortgage, and in order to acquire the mortgage you had to acquire a controlling interest in the capital stock of the First National Bank of El Toro. You didn't seem to fit into the small town banking business; a bank with a million dollars capital is small change to you." ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... woman, known as "Honey Beck," once hauled thirty or more gallons of honey to Halifax and back again, the whole distance (twenty-five miles), rather than take a low price for it. Besides skins, honey, and beeswax, eggs and poultry were always salable. One of my necessities in housekeeping was a bag of small change, and, as I never refused to take what was brought to me, my pantry was often so overstocked with eggs and my coops with ducks and chickens, that it was a hard matter to know how to ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... "troutlet;" so they asked him if he thought he could eat troutlet, for there was no other fish to give him. "If there be troutlets enough," said Don Quixote, "they will be the same thing as a trout; for it is all one to me whether I am given eight reals in small change or a piece of eight; moreover, it may be that these troutlets are like veal, which is better than beef, or kid, which is better than goat. But whatever it be let it come quickly, for the burden and pressure ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... by following the system prescribed in this Meditation, a man of superiority will be relieved from the necessity of putting his thoughts into small change, when he wishes to be understood by his wife, if indeed this man of superiority has been guilty of the folly of marrying one of those poor creatures who cannot understand him, instead of choosing for his wife a young girl whose mind and heart he has ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... right, Sweeney, I'll take five dollars in small change. I need the coin for entertainin' purposes, I'll pay you in ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... said the curate, hastily. 'I opened the box myself. This morning I found I had not enough small change for the Mothers' Independent Unity Measles and Croup Insurance payments. I suppose this is NOT a ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... the bill," answered Cutter from within; and Madame Patoff could hear the landlord counting out the small change upon a plate, the ringing silver marks and the dull little clatter ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... saw all these ingenious allegories, examined them without vanity, with no enthusiasm, and seemed to regard them as accessories inherent to the composition, as conventional ornaments, the good and current small change of art. The adulations of Racine, in his "Berenice," having all a foundation of truth, please him, but chiefly for the grace of the poetry; and he sometimes recited them, when he wished to recall ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... arrived in a cab. Where he had come from I don't know, and don't care, but I'm quite sure it wasn't any respectable place. Those salesmen are all a parcel of thieves and libertines! And then, too, the hog actually gave me all my money in small change!" ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... reflections on me, which perhaps would otherwise not have occurred. I considered how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command any thing. What well laid, and what better executed scheme of his is there, but what a small change of nature is entirely able to defeat and abolish. If but one element happens to encroach a little upon another, what confusion may it not create in his affairs, what havoc, what destruction: the servant destined to his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... no response—for the simple reason that she couldn't think of one to make. Brett always appeared t cut the ground from under one's feet, so to speak—certainly as regards the small change of social intercourse. Even behind his lightest remarks one seemed able to hear the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... dollar-pieces and substitute gold, it gave exactly the same profit to withdraw two halves or four quarters in silver. For this reason all the subsidiary silver had gone out of circulation, and there was no "small change" in the country. The legislation of 1853 rectified this error: (1) by reducing the quantity of pure silver in a dollar's worth of subsidiary coin to 345.6 grains. By making so much less an amount of silver equal to a dollar of small coins, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... once drew out his purse. "Here are nine gold pieces," he said. "They are all I have, save some small change." ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... a horn of brandy," said the first, "that the chap has either a pocketbook or a snug little hoard of small change stowed away amongst his shirts. And if not there, we will find it in ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Mademoiselle La Neige. These ladies had the tranquil manners of the highest gentility. In my cabin is a great Buddha on his throne, and before him is a lacquer tray, on which my faithful sailor servant places any small change he may find in the pockets of my clothes. Madame Prune, whose mind is much swayed by mysticism, at once supposed herself before a regular altar; in the gravest manner possible she addressed a brief prayer to the god; then drawing out her purse ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... all that the match-box and the bag refused to fill up; after three weeks of the most rigid economy they contained but eighteen dollars and some small change. What was that compared with four hundred? Trina told herself that she must have her money in hand. She longed to see again the heap of it upon her work-table, where she could plunge her hands into it, her face into it, feeling the cool, smooth metal upon her cheeks. At such ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... arrived, escorted by General Debrell's division of cavalry, in which was Williams' Kentucky brigade, commanded then by Colonel Breckinridge. In a day or two the town was filled with unattached officers, disbanded and straggling soldiers, the relics of the naval forces, fleeing officials and the small change of the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... horses covered with foam and staggering with exhaustion, yet spurred on by their riders with furious ardour; while twice as many footmen were beheld rushing after, in mad rivalry, cheering and shouting, in reply to their leader, whose voice was heard in front of the horsemen thundering out,—"Small change for the Blue Licks! Charge 'em, the brutes! ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... something. If you presented a conversational check to him in the way of a remark, he would, figuratively speaking, immediately jump to his little window and proceed to cash it, sometimes astonishing you by the amount of small change he would ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... with this difference actually to her, that she had in her own realization, in one short moment been suddenly transformed from Mr. Rayne's dependent waif into a richly endowed heiress, independent and free. A small change indeed for Honor Edgeworth. It had not power to chisel in finer style the features of her handsome face, nor the power to direct into her heart a purer, holier or more worthy sense of duty than already reigned there. No, it could make her no better. Hers was not a ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... woman was actually pleased when Caroline "held up" a stout person in a fur coat and a motor veil to add pleasantly: "I suppose you are expecting visitors this week?" Which remark is the recognized conversational small change in Thorhaven, during spring and summer, scarcely more personal than the "Fine day!" of the country labourers who live in the still untouched ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose

... those tempered expletives irritable schoolmasters accustom themselves to use—lest worse befall. "Wretched mumchancer!" he said. "Where's Mr. Plattner?" The boys are agreed on the very words. ("Wobbler," "snivelling puppy," and "mumchancer" are, it seems, among the ordinary small change of Mr. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... constant is unknown; but the mean value as determined by Joule and Thomson, in their celebrated experiments with porous plugs, was 492.66 deg. F. This value would slightly change his result. It will be seen from the above that a small change in the constants used may affect by several units the computed value of the mechanical equivalent. I have computed it, using 1.406 for the ratio of the specific heat of air at constant pressure to that at constant ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... become lost to view, and business houses resorted to the use of their own notes as a convenience. The government stamps were not well adapted to circulate as currency, and they soon gave way to notes of handsome design which came into universal use as the "small change" of the country. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... %289. No Small Change.%—The consequences of the suspension were very serious. In the first place, all the small silver coins, the dimes, half dollars, and quarter dollars, disappeared at once, and the people were again forced to do as they had done in 1789, and use "ticket money." ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... be taken to defray expenses, "but as the speaking was to be continued during the time the box was passing round," the audience was requested to "put in as many bills as possible so as not to disturb the speaker by the rattling of small change." After the meeting closed, the wagon in which we rode to town was deserted by some half dozen of its male passengers who, with the speed of Indian runners, started for the farm on foot. Being slight of build and not over strong, I would have been left behind, had ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... fish-plates which insure alignment of rail. Each length of rail is anchored at its middle point and a small clearance is allowed between ends of adjacent rails for expansion and contraction, which in the subway, owing to the relatively small change of temperature, will be reduced to a minimum. The photographs on pages 110 and 111 illustrate the method of bonding the rail, and show the bonded joint completed by the addition ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous

... of these trade coins were put out by coffee-house keepers and other tradesmen in the seventeenth century as evidence of an amount due, as stated thereon, by the issuer to the holder. Tokens originated because of the scarcity of small change. They were of brass, copper, pewter, and even leather, gilded. They bore the name, address, and calling of the issuer, the nominal value of the piece, and some reference to his trade. They were readily redeemed, on presentation, at their face value. They were passable in the immediate neighborhood, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... is quite headed in the States, I think, by this particular abeyance of judgment. When an ancient treasure of precious vessels, overscored with glowing gems and wrought artistically into wondrous shapes, has, by a prodigious process, been converted through a vast community into the small change, the simple circulating medium of dollars and 'nickels,' we can only say that the consequent permeation will be of values of a new order. Of what order ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells



Words linked to "Small change" :   cash, hard currency, hard cash



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