sixty-four-dollar question

[ siks-tee-fawr-dol-er kwes-chuhn, -fohr- ]

/ ˈsɪks tiˌfɔrˈdɒl ər ˈkwɛs tʃən, -ˌfoʊr- /

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the critical or basic question or problem: Whether the measure will get through Congress this session or not is the sixty-four-dollar question.

QUIZZES

Did you ever collect all those state quarters? Put them to good use on this quiz about curious state monikers and the facts around them.

Question 1 of 8

Mississippi’s nickname comes from the magnificent trees that grow there. What is it?

From the fact that 64 dollars was the largest prize on a popular radio quiz show in the 1940s

It was a very faithful homage to a Six Million Dollar Man episode.
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There are four photos there of representative presidential candidates.
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He also bragged about earning a PhD, a point Smerconish did not question.
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Four weeks after the injections, all 20 of the participants had developed the antibodies needed to stave off the infection.
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She narrowed her eyes, bit her lip as if to chew over the question, and whisked some stray blond hairs away from her face.
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A little boy of four was moved to passionate grief at the sight of a dead dog taken from a pond.
Children's Ways|James Sully
There was no doubt thought of his own loss in this question: yet there was, one may hope, a germ of solicitude for the mother too.
Children's Ways|James Sully
In cross-section the burrows varied from round (three inches in diameter) to oval (three inches high and four inches wide).
Summer Birds From the Yucatan Peninsula|Erwin E. Klaas
Before the spinet a bench was placed about four feet below the keys, and I was put upon the bench.
Gulliver's Travels|Jonathan Swift
We had six field-pieces, but we only took four, harnessed wit twice the usual number of horses.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV.|Various