lighten someone's purse
lighten someone's purse verb: to take money from someone.
Verb
lighten someone's purse (third-person singular simple present lightens someone's purse, present participle lightening someone's purse, simple past and past participle lightened someone's purse)
- to take money from someone.
- For when Robin Hood caught a baron or a squire, or a fat abbot or bishop, he brought them to the greenwood tree and feasted them before he lightened their purses.1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC
Forms of lighten someone's purse
| third-person singular present | lightens someone's purse |
|---|---|
| present participle | lightening someone's purse |
| past participle | lightened someone's purse |
| past | lightened someone's purse |
Questions about lighten someone's purse
- What does lighten someone's purse mean?
- Lighten someone's purse means to take money from someone.
- What part of speech is lighten someone's purse?
- Lighten someone's purse is a verb.
- What is the past tense of lighten someone's purse?
- The past tense of lighten someone's purse is lightened someone's purse.
Words near lighten someone's purse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lighten someone's purse (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-lighten someone's purse.ogg.
Cite this entry: “lighten someone's purse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lighten_someone%27s_purse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.