in for a penny, in for a pound
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Also seen as: in for a penny in for a pound
Sense 1
If you're going to take a small risk, you might as well take a larger one.
Examples
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “List of proverbial phrases” (CC BY-SA 4.0, 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 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Sense 2
English proverb; full definition pending editorial review.
Sources & notes
Listed on English Wikiquote “English proverbs” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “in for a penny, in for a pound” mean?
If you're going to take a small risk, you might as well take a larger one. Literally: originally referring to English coinage
Is “in for a penny, in for a pound” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.