megapenny

English

These pennies are only a small part of a megapenny, or a million pennies.

Etymology

From mega- +‎ penny.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛ.ɡəˌpɛ.ni/
• Rhymes: -ɛni
• Hyphenation: me‧ga‧pen‧ny

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

megapenny (plural megapennies)

1. (humorous) A million cents. ($10,000)
   • 1997, Gene Wirchenko, Re: New IEC proposal: 1 kibibyte = 1024 bytes, alt.folklore.computers (January 10, 1997):

     Or megapenny ($10,000) and nanoacre (for measuring chip sizes).

   • 2005, 'holatuwol', Forum post, forums.kingdomofloathing.com (February 19, 2005):

     If I could, there would probably be dozens of large software corporations banging on my door, offering 20 megapennies a year, company cars, ...

   • 2020, Philippe Darche, Microprocessor 1:

     In addition, [the computer] should not cost more than one “Megapenny” ($10,000 at the time).

2. (humorous) An indefinite amount of money, implied to be large.
   • 1992, 'Stinger51', IE vs. NS (philosophy question), phpbuilder.com (October 11, 2002):

     A megapenny for your thoughts, please.

   • 1998, Greg Bennett and David C. Cox, Top Ten Harris Lies, "Harrisment" (February 1998):

     Not a penny, but megapennies!!! ....

   • 2004, 'holatuwol', Re: What is causing this phenomena?, "MoonRomance" (June 10, 2004):

     ... without resorting to shelling out megapennies.

   • 2005, Phil Hampton, re: Billionaire’s Money Question, Dilbert Blog (December 20, 2005):

     And any billionaire who's worried about losing that megapenny really ought to take up a hobby, like maybe horse riding.

   • 2006, mbhunter, Ten unconventional uses for the penny, Mighty Bargain Hunter (August 20, 2006):

     No. 7: .... Settle out of court for many, many megapennies.

Translations

A million cents.

• Spanish: un millón de centavos m

An indefinite amount of money, implied to be large

• Spanish: una infinidad de dinero f

References

• 1990, Eric S. Raymond, megapenny, Jargon File 2.2.1 (June 12, 1990)

  (meg'a-pen'ee) n. $10,000 (1 cent * 10e6). Used semi-humorously as a unit in comparing computer cost/performance figures.