all one's life's worth

alternative all one's life is worth · alternative all that one's life is worth · alternative all that one's life's worth

1. idiomaticA momentous matter; a very serious risk; a difficult task or situation.

   "It's all one's life is worth to board one of these confounded cable-cars."

   1907, George Jean Nathan and Henry Louis Mencken (eds.), The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness, vol. 23, p. 23 (Google snippet view)

   5 more examples

   Many of its streets are cavern-like, for they run under the houses. . . . There is no regularity of style about them, and it is all one's life is worth to try to find the way among them without a guide and a torch.

   1889, Edward L. Wilson, “From Sinai to Shechem,”, in The Century Magazine, volume 37, page 208

   "I'm going to take a much-needed nap—and it'll be all your life's worth to let me miss that train!"

   1907, B. M. Bower, chapter 7, in The Happy Family

   "Fancy planting a capitol in this Godforsaken spot. Fairly reeks of ague and alligators and things. 'Tis all one's life's worth to put foot out of doors."

   1912, Acton Davies, Charles Frederic Nirdlinger, chapter 15, in The First Lady in the Land

   It is particularly bad out in front of the House Office Building between 5 and 7 o'clock in the evening. It is all your life is worth to get a cab then.

   1962, District of Columbia Appropriations, U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 217 (Google snippet view)

   "[I]t's about all your life's worth to go out into that blizzard, even for just a few feet."

   2007, Elridge Trott, Gathering at Vantage, →ISBN, page 242