easy money


noun
  1. money obtained with a minimum of effort.

  2. money obtained by deception, fraud, artifice, etc.

Origin of easy money

1
An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use easy money in a sentence

  • The trouble, as she saw it, was to get me to cut loose from so much easy money and devote myself entirely to real stuff.

  • Wasn't he too making easy money, bringing agricultural steel and cotton goods here and taking away his tally of hides?

    The Wind Bloweth | Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
  • Give them whisky and time and the talk would come around to easy money and easy women.

    The Wind Bloweth | Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
  • Mars was a fine planet for picking up easy money—but holding it was another matter.

    Police Your Planet | Lester del Rey
  • "I was in a pretty bad way, and I thought there was easy money coming, and that rather tempted me," he said.

    The Angel of Terror | Edgar Wallace

British Dictionary definitions for easy money

easy money

noun
  1. money made with little effort, sometimes dishonestly

  2. commerce money that can be borrowed at a low interest rate

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with easy money

easy money

Money obtained readily, with little effort and, often, illegally. For example, Winning the lottery—that's easy money! or I was wary of making easy money with the insider tips I'd been given. [c. 1900] Also see fast buck.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.