Meaning
The largest portion of something, a clear majority of a total rather than necessarily all of it. Often carries a hint that the division is disproportionate or grabby, though it is also used as a neutral descriptive term in business, science and journalism. Neutral to mildly critical in tone; extremely common in financial and political reporting. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The expression is a calque, or loan translation, of the French 'le partage du lion', which the Furetiere/Basnage Dictionnaire universel of 1701 defined as 'everything on one side and nothing on the other'. The French phrase points to a fable from the Aesop tradition, best known from La Fontaine's Fables of 1668, in which a lion hunting in partnership with a heifer, a goat and a ewe divides the prey into four parts and then claims every one of them in turn, daring his partners to touch the last. Word Histories records the earliest known English use in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). In the fable the lion takes the whole kill, but English usage softened the sense to 'the largest part', a shift lexicographers note without a documented intermediate stage.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- lion's share
- the lion's part
- the tiger's share (Indian English)
Usage Examples
- Online retailers took the lion's share of this year's increase in holiday spending.
- Claims that the council kept the lion's share of the grant for administration angered the local groups.
- She does the lion's share of the cooking whenever the whole family descends on the cottage.