an arm and a leg
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show.”
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 18, 2025
Most famously, former navy diver Paul de Gelder was left without an arm and a leg after he was attacked by a bull shark during a counter-terrorism exercise in Sydney Harbour in 2009.
From BBC • Jan. 29, 2024
But there may be other items on the list that do not cost an arm and a leg.
From Reuters • Feb. 21, 2023
This time, in a work well-timed to the world’s inflation crisis, they want to show that it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, either.
From Washington Post • Jun. 26, 2022
Except for my sister Audrey, who broke both an arm and a leg when she was young.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
