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The meaning of PENNY-WISE AND/BUT POUND-FOOLISH is careful about small amounts of money but not about large amounts —used especially to describe something that is done to save a small amount of money now but that will cost a large amount of money in the future. How to use penny-wise and/but pound-foolish in a sentence.
The English idiom “penny wise and pound foolish” is a popular saying that warns against safeguarding pennies while risking pounds. In other words, being stingy with small sums of money while being extravagant with larger sums.
Money. Pennies. What's the meaning of the phrase 'Penny wise and pound foolish'? Careful with one's spending of small sums of money but careless and wasteful with larger amounts. What's the origin of the phrase 'Penny wise and pound foolish'?
Meaning of. be penny-wise and pound-foolish. in English. be penny-wise and pound-foolish. idiom old-fashioned. Add to word list. Add to word list. to be extremely careful about small amounts of money and not careful enough about larger amounts of money. SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases.
Stingy about small expenditures and extravagant with large ones, as in Dean clips all the coupons for supermarket bargains but insists on going to the best restaurants-penny wise and pound foolish . This phrase alludes to British currency, in which a pound was once worth 240 pennies, or pence, and is now worth 100 pence.
The idiom penny-wise and pound-foolish refers to a person who is careful and economical with small amounts of money (pennies) but is wasteful and imprudent with larger amounts (pounds). Merriam-Webster defines the idiom “as careful about small amounts of money but not about large amounts.”Similarly, the Collins Dictionary defines it as ...
