Meaning
A warning that money is not easily obtained and should not be spent or requested carelessly; said especially to someone, often a child, who treats spending as effortless or assumes the money will simply be there. Informal; usually a mild scolding or refusal addressed to someone else, often compressed into the rhetorical question - do you think money grows on trees? Many languages have equivalents built on different images. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The saying belongs to an old family of plant-and-tree proverbs: the earliest recorded example of the type in the OED is from 1669 - 'Minc'd Pyes do not grow upon every tree' - and an older proverb warned that money does not grow on every bush, which James Russell Lowell still invoked in 1859. Satirical money trees predate the fixed wording: the London Magazine printed 'The American Money Tree' in 1749, and a 1787 American satire over ratifying the Constitution anticipated the jibe that money will grow upon the trees. The modern money form shows up in American print by the mid-1850s, was plainly familiar by 1883 in Pennsylvania's Daily Republican, and the often-cited 1891 Statesville Landmark example, sometimes given as the origin, is not the first.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- it doesn't grow on trees
- money does not grow on trees
- money don't grow on trees
Usage Examples
- When Kai asked for a fourth pair of skis, his mother just laughed and said money does not grow on trees.
- We would love the corner office and the retreat in Portugal, but money does not grow on trees around here.
- My grandfather reminded me that money does not grow on trees every single time I asked for a raise in my allowance.