meal ticket
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Noun:
- A coupon redeemable for a meal: A physical or digital ticket that can be exchanged for a meal, typically at a restaurant.
- A source of income or livelihood: A person, skill, job, or asset that provides one's primary financial support or means of living.
Usage Examples
Noun (Coupon):
- The charity event included a meal ticket for a free dinner at the partner restaurant.
- He lost his meal ticket, so he couldn't claim the lunch he had paid for.
Noun (Source of income):
- That steady government contract became the company's meal ticket for a decade.
- He was seen as the family's meal ticket after his first successful business venture.
Advanced Usage
- "to be/lose one's meal ticket": To be or to cease to be the primary source of someone's financial support.
- After the injury, the athlete feared he had lost his meal ticket.
- Used metaphorically to describe dependency on a single source for sustenance or success.
Variants and Related Words
- Meal voucher: A near-synonym for the coupon sense.
- Breadwinner: A person who earns money to support a family, related to the "source of income" sense.
Synonyms
- Coupon sense: Voucher, token, pass.
- Income sense: Livelihood, mainstay, cash cow, golden goose.
Related Phrases
- Meal-ticket (hyphenated adjective): Sometimes used attributively.
- He had a meal-ticket mentality, always looking for the next easy source of support.
Related Idioms
- "His/her/their meal ticket": A common idiomatic usage directly employing the term to label the source of income.
- She realized her popular blog had become her meal ticket.
Noun
- coupon redeemable at a restaurant and entitling the holder to a meal
- a source of income or livelihood