Lombard Street to a China orange en · NOUN
Etymology
* Lombard Street as a metonym for all the money in British banks. A China orange as something of trifling value.
Meanings
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(dated, figuratively, uncountable) very long odds (in favour or against an outcome)
As Jorrocks expressed it, in the event of such a catastrophe happening, “It was all Lombard Street to a China orange we’d lose the number of our mess and sarve as food for fishes!”
1885 John Conroy Hutcheson On Board the Esmeralda (Chapter Fifteen. “A Little Unpleasantness.”)Mora has been a favourite recreation with these people almost from their cradles, and he would be a bold man indeed who would venture to challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native's skill and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in his favour, and the odds are "Lombard Street to a China orange" against the outside player.
1907 Herbert M. Vaughan, The Naples Riviera (Chapter II "The Vesuvian Shore and Monte Sant' Angelo")The odds, too, are against a drunkard's reformation; all Lombard Street to a China orange.
1906, Burford Delannoy, chapter XXIII, in Prince Charlie:Of course he was still sneered at by many as a mere poseur; it still seemed to be all Lombard Street to a china orange that he would be beaten down under the myriad trampling feet of middle-class indifference and disdain.
1916, Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions. Volume 1, page 66:It looked the proverbial Lombard Street to a china orange that he must be run down and killed. By a superlatively skilful piece of driving, the bus-driver just managed to avoid him[.]
1937, Sir Malcolm Campbell, The Roads and the Problem of their Safety, London: Hutchinson, page 151: