worth

worth¹ W2S1 [wə:θ US wə:rθ] prep

[: Old English; Origin: weorth 'worthy, of a particular value']

1.) be worth sth

a) to have a value in money

▪ The house must be worth quite a lot of money now.

▪ One of the pictures is worth £50,000.

▪ Do you know how much the ring is worth ?

▪ This art collection is worth a fortune (=worth a very large amount of money) .

be worth nothing/not be worth anything

▪ It's a very old machine so I shouldn't think it's worth anything.

b) to have money or possessions that have value

▪ I've heard that he's worth over $2 million.

▪ The man who founded the company must be worth a fortune .

2.) be worth (doing) sth

a) used to say that something is interesting, useful, or helpful

▪ A lot of the small towns in the area are definitely worth visiting.

▪ The film is well worth seeing.

worth a trip/visit etc

▪ The local museum is worth a visit.

b) used to say that someone should do something because they will gain something from it

it is worth doing sth

▪ It's worth checking the details of the contract before you sign it.

▪ It's well worth getting there early if you want a good seat.

be worth the time/effort/work

▪ It was a great evening, and definitely worth all the hard work.

3.) be worth it informal

used to say that you gain something from an action

▪ It was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it .

4.) be not worth it informal

used to say that you do not gain anything from an action

▪ I thought about trying to talk to him about it, but decided it wasn't worth it .

5.) be worth sb's while (to do/doing sth)

spoken used to say that someone should spend time or money on something because they will gain something from it

▪ It might be worth your while to talk to the head of department.

▪ Some people feel it's not worth their while working if they can get money from the state.

6.) make it worth sb's while

spoken to offer something to someone so that they will do something for you

▪ He promised to make it worth our while.

7.) what's it worth (to you)?

spoken used humorously to ask someone how they will reward you if you do something for them

8.) for what it's worth

spoken used when you are giving someone information, to say that you are not sure how useful it is

▪ Here's the list of names, for what it's worth.

9.) for all you are/he is etc worth

with as much effort as possible

▪ He was pulling the rope for all he was worth.

10.) worth his/her salt

doing their job well or deserving respect

▪ Any player worth his salt would love to play for his country.

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GRAMMAR

Use worth followed by an amount to say how much money people would pay for something : a necklace worth $10,000

!! Worth is never a verb : The house is worth (NOT The house worths) over a million pounds.

WORD CHOICE:worth, value

Worth can be used as a noun to talk about how much money something is worth, but it is more usual to use value : The value of the property has doubled. | The current value of the car is about £1,000.

Worth and value can be used as nouns to talk about how good or useful someone or something is : He has demonstrated his worth/value to the company.

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worth ²

worth² W3 n [U]

[: Old English; Origin: weorth]

1.) ten pounds' worth/$500 worth etc of sth

an amount of something worth ten pounds, $500 etc

▪ a chance to win £2000 worth of computing equipment

▪ The fire caused thousands of pounds' worth of damage.

2.) ten minutes' worth/a week's worth etc of sth

something that takes ten minutes, a week etc to happen, do, or use

▪ We had only three days' worth of food left.

3.) how good or useful something is or how important it is to people

= ↑value

▪ The new computer system has already proved its worth.

4.) how much money something is worth

= ↑value

▪ It is difficult to estimate the current worth of the company.