Meaning
A source of profit or valuable results; most often used in 'hit pay dirt' or 'strike pay dirt' for making a worthwhile discovery or finally getting results after long, fruitless effort. Originally miners' language for gold-bearing earth worth processing. Informal to neutral. Informal and positive; implies reward finally arriving after sustained, unpromising effort. Regional use: General English (American origin).
Origin
A term of the California gold rush: 'pay dirt' was the earth, gravel, or clay containing enough gold to repay the work of washing it, the miners' 'pay' meaning profit rather than wages. The OED's earliest evidence is from 1853 in the New-York Daily Times; Etymonline dates the literal sense ('gravel or sand containing a sufficient amount of gold to be profitably worked') to 1856 and describes it as originally California miners' slang. An 1861 mining manual quoted by Etymonline notes that in the diggings the pay dirt was typically a stiff clay full of gravel rather than clean sand. The figurative sense, profit or success, followed by 1873, and 'hit pay dirt' is now the usual form for striking something valuable after much digging.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- hit pay dirt
- hit the pay dirt
- strike pay dirt
Usage Examples
- The archivists hit pay dirt when they located the composer's unpublished letters.
- After dozens of dead-end interviews, the reporter finally struck pay dirt with a retired foreman.
- The subscription drive struck pay dirt with a single foundation grant that covered the whole year.