pretty penny

plural pretty pennies

1. idiomaticinformalChiefly preceded by a: a considerable amount of money; a high income or price.

   They could charge a pretty penny as they had a captive audience.

   5 more examples

   VVhy here may be a pretty Penny tovvards, if the Devil don't croſs it.

   1709 (date written), Susanna Cent-livre, The Man’s Bewitch’d; or, The Devil to Do about Her. A Comedy, […], Dublin: […] J. Jones, for George Ewing, […], published 1737, →OCLC, Act I, page 12

   We shall have our branch line—our shares are up, sir—and we buy your three fields along the Brawl, and put a pretty penny into your pocket, Mr. Pendennis.

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “A Chapter of Match-making”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 350

   [E]verything's as nice as can be all over the house, and that watered-silk she had on cost a pretty penny.

   1860, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “Tom’s ‘First Half’”, in The Mill on the Floss […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II (School-time), page 256

   "Then the Captain might still make a pretty penny on Amita," said the Scotchman.

   1885, Bret Harte, chapter I, in Maruja, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 16

   He didn't know—he expected she was spending a pretty penny on dress.

   1906, John Galsworthy, “James at Large”, in The Man of Property, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, part I, page 87

   Synonyms: an arm and a leg, fair penny, fine penny, fortune