arm and a leg

an arm and a leg

slang A lot of money. College tuitions cost an arm and leg nowadays. I'm sick of paying an arm and a leg for rent in this town. He's only 18, he can't pay an arm and a leg for a car—he needs an old junker.

See also: an, and, arm, leg

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

arm and a leg

An exorbitant amount of money, as in These resort hotels charge an arm and a leg for a decent meal, or Fixing the car is going to cost an arm and a leg. According to Eric Partridge, this hyperbolic idiom, which is always used in conjunction with verbs such as "cost," "charge," or "pay," and became widely known from the 1930s on, probably came from the 19th-century American criminal slang phrase, if it takes a leg (that is, even at the cost of a leg), to express desperate determination.

See also: and, arm, leg

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.