hold the purse strings
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Control financial decisions or resources
Literally: hold the strings of a purse
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The Government have no intention of giving power to anyone except those who hold the purse strings.
The same hopes as any other pensioner, unless of course that pensioner happens to hold the purse strings.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
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 “hold the purse strings” mean?
Control financial decisions or resources Literally: hold the strings of a purse
Is “hold the purse strings” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.