det är inte värt ett öre
Meaning: Something is completely worthless or valueless.
Language: Swedish
Literally: it is not worth an öre
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The öre was historically minted in copper, giving the coin its distinctive reddish color, and stood as Sweden's lowest-value denomination — since 1873, specifically one-hundredth of a krona, about as small a unit of currency as existed in everyday circulation. "Not worth a red öre" and its close relative "not having a red öre" both lean on that low-value, low-status coin as an image for something or someone with essentially nothing to their name. Strikingly similar expressions turn up independently across several other languages built on the exact same logic with their own smallest coin: Danish "ikke en rød øre," German "keinen roten Heller," and English "not a red cent" all reach for the identical image of the reddish, close-to-worthless coin to make the same basic point about complete financial worthlessness.
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