To cost an arm and a leg
Meaning: To be extremely expensive.
Language: English
Literally: To cost an arm and a leg
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: 20th-century American; possibly evoking the terrible price soldiers paid, or portraitists charging more to include limbs.
Equivalents in other languages
- Spanish: Costar un ojo de la cara — literally: To cost an eye from the face
- Finnish: Maksaa maltaita — literally: To cost malts
- French: Coûter un bras — literally: To cost an arm
- French: Coûter la peau des fesses / Coûter les yeux de la tête — literally: To cost the skin off one's backside / the eyes out of one's head
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Tener más cara que espalda — To be utterly shameless and brazen.
- Non avere peli sulla lingua — To speak bluntly and hold nothing back.
- Avere le mani bucate — To be a spendthrift.
- Остаться с носом (Ostat'sya s nosom) — To be left empty-handed or outwitted.
- Делать ноги (Delat' nogi) — To run away quickly.
- Заговаривать зубы (Zagovarivat' zuby) — To distract someone with smooth, evasive talk.
More English idioms
- To burn the midnight oil — To work late into the night.
- Once in a blue moon — Very rarely.
- To break the ice — To ease the initial tension in a social situation.
- To throw a spanner in the works — To sabotage or disrupt a plan.
- A skeleton in the closet — A shameful secret kept hidden.
- To read the riot act — To reprimand someone sternly.
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