not worth a hill of beans
not worth a hill of beans
Of little or no importance, value, or worth. For all the congressman's posturing about overhauling the tax system, his plan to do so is not worth a hill of beans.
See also: bean, hill, not, of, worth
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
not worth a hill of beans and not amount to a hill of beans; not worth a plugged nickel; not worth beans
Fig. worthless. Your advice isn't worth a hill of beans. This old cow isn't worth a plugged nickel.
See also: amount, and, bean, hill, not, of, worth
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
hill of beans, doesn't amount to a/not worth a
Trivial, worthless. Beans apparently have been considered of little value since the thirteenth century. Chaucer, in Troilus and Criseyde (ca. 1380), wrote, “Swich [such] arguments ne been nat worth a bene.” The hill part of the expression refers to a common method of planting beans. Instead of arranging the seeds in a row, they can be planted in small clumps of four or five seeds in a little mound or hill of soil. This practice is followed principally in American home gardens (rather than by commercial growers), and indeed the expression “hill of beans” originated in America in the nineteenth century.
See also: amount, hill, not, of, worth
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- hill of beans, doesn't amount to a/not worth a
- not worth a hill of beans and not amount to a hill of beans; not ...
- be not worth a hill of beans
- a hill of beans
- a wooden nickel
- wooden
- nickel
- dime
- your blood's worth bottling
- be worth it