two cents

Meaning

1. 1phraseidiominformal

   A personal opinion or suggestion that someone offers, often when it was not specifically requested and may not be very important.

   Grammar: Almost always follows a possessive: put in your two cents, not put in the two cents.

   Patterns

   • put in your two cents
   • give your two cents
   • my two cents

   I know nobody asked, but I'll put in my two cents and say the red one looks better.

   She couldn't resist adding her two cents to the argument about where to eat.

   Here's my two cents: wait a week before you make a decision.

Common combinations

put in your two cents

Everyone at the meeting wanted to put in their two cents.

add your two cents

Let me add my two cents before we vote.

give someone your two cents

He gave me his two cents on my essay.

for what it's worth, my two cents

For what it's worth, my two cents is that we should hire her.

just my two cents

That is just my two cents, so feel free to ignore it.

Synonyms and how they differ

opinion

Opinion is neutral and works in any setting, whereas two cents sounds casual and suggests the view is offered humbly or uninvited.

input

Input refers to contributions to a task or discussion and sounds more businesslike, while two cents is chatty and personal.

2 cents' worth

This is a longer variant of the same idiom and means almost the same thing, though two cents is the more common short form.

Word family

cent noun

a small coin worth one hundredth of a dollar

twopenny adjective

British word meaning cheap or of little value, a different idiom with a related idea

Commonly confused: two cents or two cents' worth?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “two cents”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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