Meanings
- alternativenot comparableAlternative form of queer as a three dollar bill.
Don’t be silly, Frank, I didn’t even know him—and I guess I shouldn’t have cared for him if I had. Anyone who could marry my mother must have been queer as a three-dollar bill.
1963, Gwyn Griffin, chapter 2, in Freedom Observed, New York, N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, →OCLC, section III, page 302 more examples
“[…] Does he like the ship?” / “Hell, no. He wrote Pap it’s the foulest bucket in the Navy—— But that don’t mean nothing,” he added quickly, seeing Willie wince. “Hell, don’t take anything that Tom says too serious. Tom’s queer as a three-dollar bill. The Caine’s probably a great ship if he don’t like it.”
1951, Herman Wouk, “The Caine”, in The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, →OCLC, part II (The Caine), page 64He wasn’t a promoter, he didn’t know of any hotel in Acapulco. His whole buildup was as queer as a three-dollar bill. Apparently he made his living gambling, but he was even all washed up with that. Nothing.
1955 February, Ross Macdonald [pseudonym; Kenneth Millar], “The Suicide”, in The Name Is Archer, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published June 1977 (9th printing), →ISBN, pages 143–144
Cite this entry
queer as a three-dollar bill. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/queer%20as%20a%20three-dollar%20bill
“queer as a three-dollar bill.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/queer%20as%20a%20three-dollar%20bill. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “queer as a three-dollar bill,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/queer%20as%20a%20three-dollar%20bill.
Source: queer as a three-dollar bill on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.