big one

plural big ones · alternative big 'un

1. colloquialSomething important; (with 'the') the most important one, (especially sports) the big game, the big play.

   Wood agreed. ‘This is it.’ ‘The big one,’ said Fred Weasley. ‘The one we’ve all been waiting for,’ said George. ‘We know Oliver’s speech by heart,’ Fred told Harry.

   1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter XI, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN

2. UScolloquialOne hundred or one thousand dollars.

   He smiled faintly and dropped 100 big ones down on the bar.

   2002 September 23, Hunter S. Thompson, “Dr. Thompson Is Back from Beirut”, reprinted in Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness: Modern History from the Sports Desk, Simon and Schuster (2004), page 144

   2 more examples

   “Little Caesar stopped by. You guessed it. Edward G. Robinson himself, and paid four big ones for the seated figure. […]”

   1988, Arthur Allen Cohen, Acts of Theft, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 166

   You could spend the five big ones and the client could get downsized to a Jiffy Lube janitor the next week.

   2002, George Avgerakis, Desktop Video Studio Bible: Producing Video, DVD, and Websites for Profit, McGraw-Hill Professional, →ISBN, page 364

3. UScolloquialA dollar.

   I spent seventy-five big ones to have my computer crash.

   2007, Wilson Marsh, Ouiji (novella), in Six After Midnight, Steel Moon Publishing, page 78

   2 more examples

   The visitors won't know the difference because […] after they’ve dropped five hundred big ones at the factory outlet stores, an extra dollar will seem like the bargain of the century.

   2007, Sam Venable, Someday I May Find Honest Work: A Newspaper Humorist's Life, University of Tennessee Press, →ISBN, page 157

   “[…] I paid 150,000 big ones for her to kill herself in front of the biggest wigs in Hollywood? […]”

   2008, Daniel Edward Craig, Murder at Hotel Cinema, Llewellyn Worldwide, →ISBN, page 101

alternative big 'un

1. euphemisticslanguncountableDeath.

   to bite the big one, buy the big one

   to die

1. colloquialusuallygeographyA hypothetical massive earthquake somewhere along the Pacific coast of North America, but especially one projected to cause catastrophic damage to a major city such as Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles.
2. broadlycolloquialAny other hypothetical event with the potential to be far more devastating than previous events of the same type.

   Near-synonym: mother of all

   1 more example

   Oh, it's the worst one, this is the Big One [heart attack]! I'm dyin! You hear that, Elizabeth, I'm comin to join ya, honey [in Heaven]!

   1972, Sanford and Son, spoken by Fred G. Sanford (Redd Foxx (John Elroy Sanford))

   Synonyms: mother of all