Advertisement

Advertisement

easy money

noun

  1. money obtained with a minimum of effort.
  2. money obtained by deception, fraud, artifice, etc.


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


Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of easy money1

An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900
Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

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 .
Discover More

Example Sentences

Added to that mix is central bank easy money policy with interest rates hovering near zero globally, which can be its own spur to inflation.

From Time

It hasn’t been able to withdraw the easy money without precipitating a crisis.

From Time

The re-packagers, Wyden told The New York Times that year, are “a bunch of fast-buck artists,” trying to bring doctors into a scheme to make “easy money.”

Wave bills itself as being similar to PayPal in terms of offering easy money transfer between peers, but it works with mobile money accounts instead of bank accounts.

From Quartz

Swayed by the allure of easy money, his successor, Joseph Stalin, revived the old tsarist vodka monopoly, rebranded with a hammer and sickle.

From Time

Before leaving Cincinnati, Leslie told friends he wanted to make some “easy money” in New York City.

And now there was a chance to make some easy money out of it.

Truth told, he passes by spots in Las Vegas that he would have considered easy money back in his days on the street.

Both girls are now in protective custody and receiving counseling for their ordeal and addiction to the easy money.

In the short term it might seem like easy money for the cash-strapped West.

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?

Give them whisky and time and the talk would come around to easy money and easy women.

Mars was a fine planet for picking up easy money—but holding it was another matter.

"I was in a pretty bad way, and I thought there was easy money coming, and that rather tempted me," he said.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


easy meateasy-money policy