fairy money
- noun
- Informal
:
dinero de hadas
- She treats every tax refund as if it’s just fairy money and quickly splurges it.
Examples
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Bonuses can seem like fairy money, easy to spend without a second thought.
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After winning the lottery, it all felt like fairy money in his bank account.
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Don't treat your savings like fairy money!
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He thinks he can spend that fairy money without consequences.
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After winning the lottery, he felt like he was living off fairy money, spending it all without worry.
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Bonuses at work often feel like fairy money, tempting employees to spend them impulsively.
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When she receives her yearly tax refund, she considers it fairy money and indulges in luxury items.
Synonyms
2
8.9
Fake bills or coins that people do not accept as real money
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound links 'fairy' (magical, unreal, ephemeral) with 'money', so a B1 learner who knows both words can likely infer a meaning like money that is insubstantial, illusory, or liable to disappear. However, the sense 'easily spent' and the exact idiomatic nuance require a metaphorical extension that is not fully predictable from the parts alone, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
The term fairy money may come from old stories about fairies leaving small, shiny coins that look real but can disappear or be part of a trick. So, fairy money now means money that feels 'easy to spend' or 'not real' because it seems to appear and disappear like magic.