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It Cost an Arm and a Leg.

 

It Cost an Arm and a Leg



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Meaning:

It cost an arm and a leg means that the item costs a large amount of money. "Wow, that Jewelry cost us an arm and a leg." 


Origin:

This idiom has a few theories. The oldest being that portrait painters use to charge more for larger pain. A head and a shoulder painting was the cheapest option, followed in price by one which includes arms, add finally the top of the range was legs and all portrait. Anos so often with popular tales, there is not truth in that story. Painters certainly did charge more for larger pictures, but there's no evidence to suggest they did so by limb count. Another theory was that the phrase started during the 20th century, possibly during one of the major world wars. The idea being that soldiers, because of their heavy involvement in war and being in the line of fire, could possibly lose a hand, foot, leg, or arm. Thus the war would literally cost a person their arm or leg with a high price to pay, even though these are just theories about where it costs an arm and a leg came from, there was a write up in 1790 in The Ladies Magazine that read:

"This is my sole desire, my only passion and in order to gratify it,  I would give my right arm and my entire fortune."

Perhaps this is where the idiom came from. However, when we start to dig around, the earliest citation for this particular phrase being used in writing is around the mid 20th century in the comic section of a Long Beach Independent newspaper in 1951, a narrator from one of the comics says:

"It costs them an arm and a leg to fix up a rumpus room for junior."


Example:

Today we still use the phrase the same way to express it. Something costs a lot of money and example sentences.

"Their wedding was so extravagant. I bet it costs them an arm and a leg to pay for it."



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