Dictionary

pay dirt en · NOUN

Etymology

From pay + dirt.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) Earth which contains profitable quantities of ore.
2. (figuratively, uncountable) A profitable area or period; success.
   • The DESI team had not expected to hit pay dirt so soon, Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, an astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley lab and a spokeswoman for the project, said in an interview. 2024 April 4, Dennis Overbye, quoting Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, “A Tantalizing ‘Hint’ That Astronomers Got Dark Energy All Wrong”, in Thew New York Times:
   • to hit pay dirt
   • Wittgenstein was closer to the pay dirt in one of his letters to the philosopher G. E. Moore, when he talked about thought with due attention to what fascinated Heisenberg on his deathbed: turbulence. 2007, Clive James, Cultural Amnesia, Picador, page 805:
   • Isuzu Inc. hit pay dirt in the late '80s with its series of “Joe Isuzu” spots, featuring an oily, Satanic-looking salesman who told whoppers about Isuzu's genuine llama-skin upholstery and ability to run on tapwater. 1997 [1990], David Foster Wallace, “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN:

Forms

Coordinates

sidepay · paystreak

Deriveds

hit pay dirt