two bits

noun, plural in form but singular or plural in construction

|Updated on: 16 Jun 2018

Definition of two bits

1 : the value of a quarter of a dollar

2 : something of small worth or importance

Recent Examples of two bits from the Web

The combination of these two bits increases the range of values that individual neurons in the network can have.

— john timmer, Ars Technica, "Training a neural network in phase-change memory beats GPUs," 7 June 2018
That quick cook time comes down to two bits of prep: chopping your ingredients in advance and sticking to an order of operations (more on that below).

— aliza abarbanel, Bon Appetit, "Kimchi-Fried Grains Will Show You the True Power of Sunday Meal Prep," 28 Mar. 2018
Lego Boost’s capabilities go wide, and a child could just spend a week working out all the possibilities of one or two bits of code.

— geoffrey a. fowler, WSJ, "Lego Boost Review: Meet Your Child’s New Coding Coach," 25 July 2017
There's not many football stars these days who aren't sporting at least one or two bits of body art, and there are quite a few who have taken getting inked to a whole other level.

— SI.com, "PHOTO: Twitter Reacts as Watford New Boy Andre Gray Shows Off 'Masterpiece' Back Tattoo," 8 Sep. 2017
Including the two bits of custom code, the site uses a total of eight plug-ins, rather than the dozens that many WP sites saddle themselves with.

— lee hutchinson, Ars Technica, "How to hurricane-proof a Web server," 7 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'two bits.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.