arm and a leg

Idioms  

1. An exorbitant amount of money, as in These resort hotels charge an arm and a leg for a decent meal, or Fixing the car is going to cost an arm and a leg. According to Eric Partridge, this hyperbolic idiom, which is always used in conjunction with verbs such as “cost,” “charge,” or “pay,” and became widely known from the 1930s on, probably came from the 19th-century American criminal slang phrase, if it takes a leg (that is, even at the cost of a leg), to express desperate determination.

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Example Sentences

“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

Councillor David Romney said he was wary of taking on the responsibility, saying it could end up costing Oakham "an arm and a leg".

From BBC • Apr. 15, 2023

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

Related Words

• amount
• charge
• damage
• expenditure
• figure
• outlay
• payment
• price
• price tag
• rate
• tariff
• value
• worth