Word.ws English Dictionary

all one's life's worth

all one's life's worth noun: a momentous matter; a very serious risk; a difficult task or situation.

Noun

all one's life's worth

  1. (idiomatic) A momentous matter; a very serious risk; a difficult task or situation.
    • Many of its streets are cavern-like, for they run under the houses. . . . There is no regularity of style about them, and it is all one's life is worth to try to find the way among them without a guide and a torch.1889, Edward L. Wilson, “From Sinai to Shechem,”, in The Century Magazine, volume 37, page 208
    • "I'm going to take a much-needed nap—and it'll be all your life's worth to let me miss that train!"1907, B. M. Bower, chapter 7, in The Happy Family

Forms of all one's life's worth

alternative formall one's life is worth
alternative formall that one's life is worth
alternative formall that one's life's worth

Questions about all one's life's worth

What does all one's life's worth mean?
All one's life's worth means a momentous matter; a very serious risk; a difficult task or situation.
What part of speech is all one's life's worth?
All one's life's worth is a noun.

Words near all one's life's worth in the dictionary

  1. all one wants
  2. all one word
  3. all one's born days
  4. all one's eggs in one basket
  5. all one's life is worth
  6. all one's life's worth
  7. all one's taste is in one's mouth
  8. all other things being equal
  9. all out
  10. all over
  11. all over again

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: all one's life's worth (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-all one's life's worth.ogg.

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