crying all the way to the bank
- idiom
:
llorando hasta el banco
- She may act upset about the merger, but she's really crying all the way to the bank.
Examples
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Though the film was panned by reviewers, the director ended up crying all the way to the bank.
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After the movie's success, the director was crying all the way to the bank.
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After his critics laughed at his investment, he was crying all the way to the bank when it paid off.
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Look at how they're crying all the way to the bank!
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After his critics laughed at his investment, he was crying all the way to the bank when it paid off.
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She may act upset about the merger, but she's really crying all the way to the bank.
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Though the film was panned by reviewers, the director ended up crying all the way to the bank.
Synonyms
To make a lot of money while pretending to complain
How Profitable
54
3.2
19
3.2
27
3.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
crying + all + the + way + to + the + bank
The idiomatic sense of profiting despite complaining or criticism is not directly derivable from the literal parts — 'crying', 'all the way', and 'bank' create a misleading concrete image rather than the intended ironic meaning. Although 'bank' signals money, the ironic usage and pragmatic inference required to get the full sense are language-specific and likely beyond a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Crying all the way to the bank creates a simple picture: someone is crying while walking to the bank because they secretly made money. So, the phrase means 'to make money easily while pretending to be unhappy'.