What does hitting pay dirt mean?
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hobbies and interests
stamps and coins
pay dirt, hit. Also, strike pay dirt. Make a valuable discovery or large profit, as in We've been researching the source of that quotation for a month and we finally hit pay dirt in the Library of Congress. This idiom, from the mid-1800s, refers to a miner's finding gold or other precious metals while sifting soil.
Keeping this in view, where does hit pay dirt come from?
The term pay dirt originated in the American Old West in the 1850s during the California Gold Rush. By the 1870s the term pay dirt was also used to refer to any method of striking it rich or discovering something valuable. The preferred spelling is two words, pay dirt, though paydirt is often used.
Similarly, why is it called paydirt?
Pay dirt is a mining term. It refers to dirt that has enough ore in it to be worth extracting. Could be iron ore; could be gold ore. The term pay dirt appeared in the mid-1800s, during the California Gold Rush.
Definition of humble pie. : a figurative serving of humiliation usually in the form of a forced submission, apology, or retraction —often used in the phrase eat humble pie.