Idiom
look as if one has lost a shilling and found sixpence
Meaning
To look annoyed or displeased.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“You look as if you have lost a shilling and found sixpence.”
“She looks as if she has lost a shilling and found sixpence today.”
“Do not look as if you have lost a shilling and found sixpence.”
“When the boss announced the new weekend hours, everyone looked as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence.”
“He looked as if he had lost a shilling and found sixpence when the waiter brought him the wrong meal after a long wait.”
“My neighbor looks as if he has lost a shilling and found sixpence because the rain ruined his plans for a backyard barbecue.”
“Upon hearing that the project deadline was moved forward by a week, the team looked as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence, clearly displeased by the news.”
Examples
simple
“You look as if you have lost a shilling and found sixpence.”
“She looks as if she has lost a shilling and found sixpence today.”
“Do not look as if you have lost a shilling and found sixpence.”
contextual
“When the boss announced the new weekend hours, everyone looked as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence.”
“He looked as if he had lost a shilling and found sixpence when the waiter brought him the wrong meal after a long wait.”
“My neighbor looks as if he has lost a shilling and found sixpence because the rain ruined his plans for a backyard barbecue.”
complex
“Upon hearing that the project deadline was moved forward by a week, the team looked as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence, clearly displeased by the news.”
Origin
From the arithmetic of pre-decimal coinage, where a shilling was valued at twelve pence. The expression describes the arrival at a net loss of sixpence, an outcome that makes the subsequent discovery of a smaller coin an insufficient consolation for the disappearance of the larger one.
Key words
Related idioms
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