penny wise and pound foolish
1
8.6
- idiom
- Informal
:
ahorrador en centavos y derrochador en libras
- We know states are being penny-wise and pound-foolish when they cut state funding for higher education.
Examples
-
Let's not be penny wise and pound foolish.
Blog text (15) -
Being penny wise and pound foolish can lead to unnecessary financial problems in the long run.
-
In my opinion, this plan was penny wise and pound foolish.
Blog text (21) -
The man was penny wise and pound foolish.
Fiction book (1996) -
Your way is penny wise and pound foolish.
Blog text (9) -
The resulting tin-cup diplomacy is penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Academic text (2000) -
But there is no escaping the fact that CFOs and finance departments are usually, to use an English cliché, "penny wise and pound foolish."
Blog text (19) -
It's important to avoid being penny wise and pound foolish when making investment decisions.
-
Many homeowners are penny wise and pound foolish by trying to save money on maintenance instead of hiring professionals.
Synonyms
1
9.9
Careful with small amounts of money but wasteful with larger amounts
How Prudent
Surface Forms
Morphology
penny + wise + and + pound + foolish
The meaning is directly derivable from the parts: 'penny-wise' = careful about pennies (small amounts) and 'pound-foolish' = foolish about pounds (larger sums), so a learner who knows the constituent words and the contrastive structure can infer the proverb's message. The compositional antonymic pattern is transparent and resembles equivalent proverbs in other languages, making it accessible to B1 learners.
Etymology
Penny wise and pound foolish comes from old British money: a penny was a very small coin and a pound was a much larger sum. It shows someone who cares about saving tiny amounts but wastes big money, so it means 'careful with small amounts but wasteful with larger sums'.