six-bits

six bits

dated 75 cents (0.75 US dollars). A "bit" was a former unit of currency equal to one-eighth of a dollar, used until the US adopted decimal currency in 1794. The term survived into the 20th century, especially in reference to 25 cents ("two bits"). Primarily heard in US. For six bits more, you can have breakfast brought to your room in the morning. Back in my day, you could get a full square meal for just six bits!
See also: bit, six
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

six-bits

n. seventy-five cents. (A bit is equal to twelve and one-half U.S. cents.) Just try one of these things. It’s only six-bits.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • six bits
  • heart in the right place, to have one's
  • make ground against (something)
  • pay in someone's own coin, to
  • deutsche mark
  • wampum
  • when the eagle flies
  • the eagle flies
  • cash or check
  • lettuce
References in periodicals archive
For instance, when the characters in "The Gilded Six-Bits" are analyzed, many readers of CroWs book might want to know why Missie May is deceived by Otis Slemmons and what reconciles Joe Banks and Missie May.
The four-bits good (example: AB) and the six-bits good chips (example: ABC) are used with a specially designed DIMM PCB.
Dunn's "'The Ring of Singing Metal on Wood': Zora Neale Hurston's Artistry in 'The Gilded Six-Bits'" stands apart in this collection because in analyzing Zora Neale Hurston's "The Gilded Six-Bits" they are focusing on a short story written in 1933 not to reconcile past and present but to address themes of particular relevance during the Depression.
"The Gilded Six-Bits" presents the story of Missie May, unable to see through the shining currency to recogniz e its meager value; this mis-sight leads her to an affair with the man who owns the false coins, nearly ruining her marriage.
"THE GILDED SIX-BITS," FIRST PUBLISHED IN Story, AUGUST 1933, is Zora Neale Hurston's last short story before she became a novelist with the publication of Jonah's Gourd Vine in 1934.
As the culmination of her apprenticeship, "The Gilded Six-Bits" is significant for its foreshadowing of the themes and narrative technique of her finest novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
The latter period begins with "The Gilded Six-Bits" and ends with Dust Tracks on a Road (Kilson, p.
"It was a Negro yard around a Negro house," Hurston begins "The Gilded Six-Bits," "in a Negro settlement that looked to the payroll of the G.
Even the term "six-bits" resonates with popular culture of the 1930s when seventy-five cents could make a big difference, because even the smallest amounts of money had considerable buying power, or it could mean nothing at all in the face of national economic privation.
In "The Gilded Six-Bits," however, rather than addressing a moral failing on the part of her main characters, Hurston uses gilded money and Otis D.
In "The Gilded Six-Bits," Missie May, and Joe, to a lesser extent, allow corrupt desires to replace their innocent acceptance of their native cultural values.
Scholars familiar with Hurston's writing know that representations of washing and cleanliness recur in her work, perhaps most significantly in Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), the brilliant "Gilded Six-Bits" (1933), and "Sweat" (1926).
Similarly, "The Gilded Six-Bits" opens with Missie May "bathing herself in the galvanized washtub in the bedroom" (985).
As in Jonah and "The Gilded Six-Bits," "Sweat" begins with a scene of washing: Delia Jones, a "washwoman," "squat[s] in the kitchen floor beside the great pile of clothes, sorting them into great heaps according to color" (955).
The story goes on to detail the difficult relationship between Delia and Sykes, incorporating a narrative of sexual infidelity (as in "The Gilded Six-Bits," only with a reversal of genders).