"money pit" meaning in English

See money pit in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Audio: En-au-money pit.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{en-proper-noun}} money pit
  1. (sometimes capitalized) Long-standing nickname of a complicated, seemingly man-made excavation on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, rumored to contain pirate treasure and which has been repeatedly and unsuccessfully probed at great expense. Tags: capitalized, sometimes Categories (place): Nova Scotia Translations (A financial commitment the costs of which are unsustainable): rahareikä (Finnish), gouffre [masculine] (French), Fass ohne Boden [neuter] (German)
    Sense id: en-money_pit-en-name-HZ7h~Uzu Disambiguation of Nova Scotia: 96 4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 84 16 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 84 16 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 84 16

Noun

Audio: En-au-money pit.ogg [Australia] Forms: money pits [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} money pit (plural money pits)
  1. (idiomatic) A possession or financial commitment, especially a building or vehicle, that creates substantial ongoing expenses, especially one whose costs are considered to be unsustainable. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-money_pit-en-noun-9vQbQfrg

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for money pit meaning in English (6.3kB)

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        {
          "ref": "1989 March 10, Laurence Iliff, “Parents Poll Hits Closing Of Ramona”, in The Press-Courier, USA, retrieved 2011-09-27, page 1",
          "text": "[T]he district does not want to hold on to the nearly 50-year old school for very much longer, as it has outlived its usefulness and has become a money pit.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997 February 15, Michael Kimmelman, “An Old Dream For the Arts, A New Chance For the City”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-09-27",
          "text": "Critics lambasted the building's design, the art collection and Mr. Hartford, whose gallery became a money pit. Within a year he was nosing around for a partner or buyer.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 June 14, Jeff Kluger, “Is the Space Station a Money Pit?”, in Time",
          "text": "Close to two decades past deadline and now carrying a projected $100 billion price tag, it has not returned a lick of good science — nor is it likely to.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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      ],
      "id": "en-money_pit-en-noun-9vQbQfrg",
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      ],
      "tags": [
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        {
          "ref": "1909 May 20, “Is Capt. Kid's Treasure in Chester Basin, N.S.?”, in St. John Sun, Canada, retrieved 2011-09-27",
          "text": "In 1896 . . . work was again started with two engines and steam pumps, with the intention of pumping out the \"money pit\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1926 June 6, Catherine MacKenzie, “Tide Guards Oak Island's Buried Gold”, in New York Times, page SM11",
          "text": "They sank twenty shafts in a ring round the central money pit, and drove tunnels endlessly in the hope of intercepting the underground channel and so draining the treasure shaft.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1947 June 4, “Gigantic Search For Treaure May Move Island”, in Ottawa Citizen, Canada, retrieved 2011-09-27, page 29",
          "text": "Edward Reichert, a New Yorker, was planning \"a gigantic project\" . . . to move in power excavation equipment to seek the storied \"money pit\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1972 December 5, Tom Tiede, “Diggers Keep Seeking Hole Truth of Island's Pirate Treasure Shaft”, in Milwaukee Journal, USA, retrieved 2011-09-27, page 1",
          "text": "The Money Pit shaft rested atop two 500 foot \"protection tunnels\" which were connected to the bay.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1991 July 15, “Hunting for the Grandddaddy of Pirate Treasures”, in CNNMoney.com, retrieved 2011-09-27",
          "text": "But the granddaddy of all hoards could be resting at the bottom of a 200- foot shaft on Oak Island, off Nova Scotia. This so-called Money Pit has exercised a moth-to-flame attractive power over investors since it was discovered in 1795.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "tags": [
        "capitalized",
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "A financial commitment the costs of which are unsustainable",
          "word": "rahareikä"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "A financial commitment the costs of which are unsustainable",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "gouffre"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "A financial commitment the costs of which are unsustainable",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "Fass ohne Boden"
        }
      ]
    }
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/En-au-money_pit.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "word": "money pit"
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          "text": "[T]he district does not want to hold on to the nearly 50-year old school for very much longer, as it has outlived its usefulness and has become a money pit.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997 February 15, Michael Kimmelman, “An Old Dream For the Arts, A New Chance For the City”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-09-27",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 June 14, Jeff Kluger, “Is the Space Station a Money Pit?”, in Time",
          "text": "Close to two decades past deadline and now carrying a projected $100 billion price tag, it has not returned a lick of good science — nor is it likely to.",
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          "ref": "1926 June 6, Catherine MacKenzie, “Tide Guards Oak Island's Buried Gold”, in New York Times, page SM11",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1947 June 4, “Gigantic Search For Treaure May Move Island”, in Ottawa Citizen, Canada, retrieved 2011-09-27, page 29",
          "text": "Edward Reichert, a New Yorker, was planning \"a gigantic project\" . . . to move in power excavation equipment to seek the storied \"money pit\".",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "1972 December 5, Tom Tiede, “Diggers Keep Seeking Hole Truth of Island's Pirate Treasure Shaft”, in Milwaukee Journal, USA, retrieved 2011-09-27, page 1",
          "text": "The Money Pit shaft rested atop two 500 foot \"protection tunnels\" which were connected to the bay.",
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        {
          "ref": "1991 July 15, “Hunting for the Grandddaddy of Pirate Treasures”, in CNNMoney.com, retrieved 2011-09-27",
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      ],
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  "translations": [
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      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "A financial commitment the costs of which are unsustainable",
      "word": "rahareikä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "A financial commitment the costs of which are unsustainable",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "gouffre"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "A financial commitment the costs of which are unsustainable",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Fass ohne Boden"
    }
  ],
  "word": "money pit"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.