lion's share

American  

noun

1. the largest part or share, especially a disproportionate portion.

   The eldest son received the lion's share of the estate.

---

lion's share Cultural  

1. A disproportionately large segment of the whole: “Though we always divided our winnings, somehow Barton always seemed to end up with the lion's share.”

---

lion's share Idioms  

1. The greater part or most of something, as in Whenever they won a doubles match, Ethel claimed the lion's share of the credit, or As usual, Uncle Bob took the lion's share of the cake. This expression alludes to Aesop's fable about a lion, who got all of a kill because its fellow hunters, an ass, fox, and wolf, were afraid to claim their share. [Late 1700s]

---

Etymology

Origin of lion's share

First recorded in 1780–90; probably after Aesop's fable in which the lion claimed all the spoils of a hunt

Example Sentences

"It's not just our problem set, going forward, even though we have done the lion's share of preparation to ensure that that strait will be open," he said.

From Barron's

She’ll be pleased, probably, or she may wonder why his wife, who came along later in life, is now getting 75% when once upon a time she might have inherited the lion’s share of the trust’s assets.

From MarketWatch

That could prove crucial for both an economy that is reliant on consumer spending to drive the lion’s share of its growth, and a stock market that is growing increasingly skeptical of the megacap tech stocks that have underpinned its performance since the bull market began in October 2022.

From Barron's

Urban hubs also attract the lion’s share of immigrants.

From The Wall Street Journal

The company’s ecosystem of chips, systems, networking, software and data puts it in a good spot “to capture the lion’s share of AI infrastructure spending in the years to come,” William Blair analyst Sebastien Naji wrote in a note earlier this week.

From MarketWatch