Word.ws English Dictionary

Lombard Street to a China orange

Lombard Street to a China orange noun: very long odds (in favour or against an outcome).

Noun

Lombard Street to a China orange (uncountable)

  1. (dated, figuratively) very long odds (in favour or against an outcome)
    • As Jorrocks expressed it, in the event of such a catastrophe happening, “It was all Lombard Street to a China orange we’d lose the number of our mess and sarve as food for fishes!”1885 John Conroy Hutcheson On Board the Esmeralda (Chapter Fifteen. “A Little Unpleasantness.”)
    • The odds, too, are against a drunkard's reformation; all Lombard Street to a China orange.1906, Burford Delannoy, chapter XXIII, in Prince Charlie

Origin of Lombard Street to a China orange

* Lombard Street as a metonym for all the money in British banks. A China orange as something of trifling value.

Questions about Lombard Street to a China orange

What does Lombard Street to a China orange mean?
Lombard Street to a China orange means very long odds (in favour or against an outcome).
What part of speech is Lombard Street to a China orange?
Lombard Street to a China orange is a noun.

Words near Lombard Street to a China orange in the dictionary

  1. Lombard rates
  2. Lombard reflex
  3. Lombard rhythm
  4. Lombard rhythms
  5. Lombard Street
  6. Lombard Street to a China orange
  7. Lombardesque
  8. Lombardi
  9. Lombardi-esque
  10. Lombardian
  11. Lombardic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Lombard Street to a China orange (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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