Meaning of money pit | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A possession or financial commitment, especially a building or vehicle, that creates substantial ongoing expenses, especially one whose costs are considered to be unsustainable.
   idiomatic
2. A complicated, seemingly man-made excavation on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, rumored to contain pirate treasure and which has been repeatedly and unsuccessfully probed at great expense.
   capitalized, informal, sometimes

Equivalents

Examples

“[T]he district does not want to hold on to the nearly 50-year old^([sic]) school for very much longer, as it has outlived its usefulness and has become a money pit.”

“Critics lambasted the building's design, the art collection and Mr. Hartford, whose gallery became a money pit. Within a year he was nosing around for a partner or buyer.”

“Close to two decades past deadline and now carrying a projected $100 billion price tag, it has not returned a lick of good science — nor is it likely to.”

“In 1896 . . . work was again started with two engines and steam pumps, with the intention of pumping out the "money pit".”

“They sank twenty shafts in a ring round the central money pit, and drove tunnels endlessly in the hope of intercepting the underground channel and so draining the treasure shaft.”

“Edward Reichert, a New Yorker, was planning "a gigantic project" . . . to move in power excavation equipment to seek the storied "money pit".”

“The Money Pit shaft rested atop two 500 foot "protection tunnels" which were connected to the bay.”

“But the granddaddy of all hoards could be resting at the bottom of a 200- foot shaft on Oak Island, off Nova Scotia. This so-called Money Pit has exercised a moth-to-flame attractive power over investors since it was discovered in 1795.”

CEFR level