Word.ws English Dictionary

run for one's money

run for one's money noun: a difficult challenge for the person indicated, especially one involving a competitive situation.

Noun

a run for one's money

  1. (idiomatic) A difficult challenge for the person indicated, especially one involving a competitive situation.
    • Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like a wolf—kings and sages, and poets and lawgivers, all the churches, and all the philosophies. But I have never been caught yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them a good run for their money, and I will now.1908, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Bristol: J[ames] W[illiams] Arrowsmith, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, →OCLC
    • "If your competitor regards you as a menace to his pocketbook, he can give you a nice little run for your money and delay you indefinitely."1918, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 24, in The Valley of the Giants
  2. (dated, idiomatic) A reasonable opportunity to succeed, perform acceptably, or escape harm, especially in a difficult situation.
    • He appealed and, by some arrangement or other, got leave to state his case personally to the Court of Revision. Said, I believe, that he did not much trust lawyers, but that if the sahibs would give him a hearing, as man to man, he might have a run for his money.1913, Rudyard Kipling, chapter 18, in Letters of Travel
    • "I say he'll get a run for his money. If there's any killing to be done, it will be in fair fight."1917, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 11, in The Sheriff's Son

Origin of run for one's money

The idiom likely originates with horse racing, where one can get enjoyment "from watching the race even if one does not win much." Its usage was first recorded in 1874.

Questions about run for one's money

What does run for one's money mean?
Run for one's money means a difficult challenge for the person indicated, especially one involving a competitive situation.
What part of speech is run for one's money?
Run for one's money is a noun.

Words near run for one's money in the dictionary

  1. run feast
  2. run feasts
  3. run for cover
  4. run for it
  5. run for one's life
  6. run for one's money
  7. run for the exercise
  8. run for the hills
  9. run for the money
  10. run for the roses
  11. run from the tongue

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: run for one's money (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-run for one's money.ogg.

Cite this entry: “run for one's money.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/run_for_one%27s_money. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.