hit pay dirt

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

to suddenly become successful or find something valuable

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

bỗng trở nên thành công hoặc tìm thấy điều gì có giá trị

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: strike pay soil
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The company hit pay dirt with their new product launch

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “hit pay dirt” mean?

to suddenly become successful or find something valuable Literally: strike pay soil

Is “hit pay dirt” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.