to cash in one's chips
1
7.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
retirarse
- Knowing when to cash in your chips can often lead to the best outcomes in life.
- want to cash in your chips
- cash in your chips and go
Examples
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Trick is: Don't cash in your chips.
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Maybe it's time just to cash in your chips, head south, and stay there.
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I want you to cash in your chips and go home.
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Now you and your family are getting ready to cash in your chips.
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You cash in my chips...
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Ah, you know, just let me cash in my chips and I'll be all yours.
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"Now let me cash in my chips, and then let's go to bed."
Fiction book (1991) -
You gotta know when to cash in your chips, Emma.
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Lev: A.J., let me cash in my chips.
Fiction book (1998) -
It's best to cash in your chips and enjoy the winnings before it's too late.
Synonyms
21
3.7
Make money from something, often by using a good opportunity
1
6.0
To leave a demanding job or lifestyle to live more simply
Antonyms
How Final
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal sense — exchanging gambling 'chips' for 'cash' — is directly derivable from the constituents, so a learner who knows the words can infer the concrete gambling meaning. However, the extended idiomatic uses (to quit/retire or figuratively to take one’s gains and leave, sometimes even to die) require cultural/gambling knowledge and a metaphorical shift, so the full figurative meaning is not fully predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The saying cash in one's chips comes from gambling, where players turned their chips, the small pieces used to bet, into cash when they stopped playing. That's why it now means 'to use your resources or quit', often to leave a situation after taking what you can.