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meal ticket
noun
- a ticket that entitles the bearer to meals in a specified restaurant, especially when meals purchased in this manner are offered at reduced rates.
- Informal. someone upon whom one is dependent for one's income or livelihood:
selfish children who look upon their father only as a meal ticket.
- Informal. something, as an object or ability possessed by a person, that is necessary to that person's livelihood:
The radio announcer's voice was his meal ticket.
meal ticket
noun
- slang.a person, situation, etc, providing a source of livelihood or income
Word History and Origins
Origin of meal ticket1
Word History and Origins
Origin of meal ticket1
Idioms and Phrases
A person or thing depended on as a source of income, as in Magic Johnson was a real meal ticket for his team , or Her interpersonal skills will be her meal ticket when she goes into sales . This metaphoric expression alludes to the earlier practice of handing out tickets that entitle their holder to a meal. [Early 1900s]Example Sentences
He meant to ask for a meal ticket, but the seemingly proper moment never came, and he decided to pay himself that night.
You've always been ace-high with me, and there never will come the day when you can't eat on my meal-ticket.
For he had said frankly that when he received his discharge from the Army he would have to dig up a job to get a meal ticket.
I note by the papers that you have served your bit and are now out again digging around for your own meal ticket.
Now worked around the Army Hotel and received in return his bed and one meal ticket a day.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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