worth one's while
Idioms-
Merit one's time or efforts, as in It's hardly worth your while to count the transactions; it can be done by computer . [Late 1600s]
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make something worth one's while . Compensate one for one's time or efforts, as in If you take care of our yard while we're away, I'll make it worth your while . [Mid-1800s] Both usages employ while in the sense of “a period of time spent.”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But it is scarcely worth one's while to read six hundred pages of very small print in order to learn this.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by George Saintsbury
It might be worth one's while to know, for they're surely signaling.
From The Lords of the Wild A Story of the Old New York Border by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
It is well worth one’s while to read the presentations of the subject from the different points of view.
From Historical Essays by James Ford Rhodes
I must say further to the student: read either Carlyle’s “French Revolution” or his “Frederick the Great,” I care not which, although it is well worth one’s while to read both.
From Historical Essays by James Ford Rhodes
The life of a Mecklenburg farmer shall yet be worth one's while.
From Seed-time and Harvest A Novel by Fritz Reuter
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.
