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Glite Dictionary
to pay through the nose

to pay through the nose

4 8.0
Give much more money than normal for something
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : pagar un ojo de la cara
  • If you want to stay at that luxury hotel, you will have to pay through the nose for the room.
  • people who pay through the nose

They support, they see other countries have free health care and we and we are still paying through the nose and going through all this rigmarole.

Examples

Synonyms

to overpay
vsto pay through the nose
14 3.3

To pay more money than you should for something

gives a much higher amount than is reasonable or expected

Antonyms

to bargain
103 2.4

To discuss the price or terms to get a better deal

to underpay
3 3.8

Pay someone less money than their work is worth

How Expensive

to pay through the nose
  • Informal
4 8.0
to pay
∞ 1.0
to tip
87 1.0

Surface Forms

pay through the nose infinitive
paid through the nose past
paid through the nose past participle
paying through the nose present participle
pays through the nose third person singular

Morphology

pay + through + the + nose

The sense 'to pay an amount much higher than reasonable' cannot be derived from the literal meanings of 'pay' (transfer money) plus 'through'/'the'/'nose' (body part); the spatial/physical words do not compositionally yield an inference of excessive cost. This is a conventionalized idiom with a metaphorical, language-specific meaning that a B1 learner who only knows the constituents would not reliably predict.

Etymology

Pay through the nose may come from an old story: one popular story says that in some places people who did not pay a tax were punished by having their nose cut, so many paid a large sum to avoid this. That's why the phrase now means 'to pay much more than fair'.