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| A Pretty Penny |
Meaning:
A Pretty Penny means A considerable profit or a
large sum of money.
“Whoo, that’s gonna cost a pretty penny.”
Origin:
I know, it sounds like if you have a clean penny, it is worth more than a dirty penny, but not quite. This phrase started out a bit different, being said as 'a fine penny' or 'a fair penny' the expression came into the language in the 1700s.
We see it first being used in 1710 in a play by the popular playwright Susanna Centlivre, The Man's Bewitch'd, it reads:
“Why here may be a pretty Penny towards, if the Devil don't cross it.”
Example:
Today we
still use the phrase pretty penny to say something costs a lot of money, an
example sentence is:
“A fancy car like that costs a pretty penny, so I definitely can't afford it!”
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