# big bucks

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/big-bucks
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

Lots of money.

## Examples

- She hopes to earn big bucks at her new job.
- Many people move to the city because they think they can make big bucks in the finance industry.
- While the startup promised big bucks to its early investors, the company ultimately failed to turn a profit and collapsed within a year.

## Origin

Big bucks means a large amount of money, and buck has meant a dollar since the American frontier of the 1700s. Back then deerskins, or buckskins, were a standard and widely accepted form of currency, used for trade long before the official U.S. dollar existed. Settlers and traders bartered animal pelts with Native American tribes; a buckskin was durable, universally valued, and effectively served as a single unit of money. The usage is recorded directly. In a 1748 journal entry, the Pennsylvania Dutch pioneer Conrad Weiser noted that someone was robbed of 300 bucks worth of goods, and that five bucks would buy a cask of whiskey. In 1824, in Sketches of North American Indians, James Buchanan wrote that each buck-skin was one dollar.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.