# big ticket
## English
### Noun

big ticket (plural big tickets)
* Something of major importance; crux.
** 2013, Future Foundation, The Big Lie, page 22:Some leave the field of play for a while to come back mostly for the big ticket moments.
** 2016, Martin Tolich, Qualitative Ethics in Practice:My own notes (of November 10, 2003) as chair of SSHWC reveal the “big ticket” of ideas that would guide our deliberations: striking the right tone of our argument (i.e., no militancy), constantly reaffirming that a big part of TCPS is a good document (often using footnote references to TCPS) and that it is not opposed to academic freedom, and reinforcing the idea of the joint responsibility of the research ethics board and researcher.
** 2021 September 6, Zack Handlen, “Rick And Morty ends its fifth season looking for an escape hatch”, in AV Club‎:The real big ticket here is the second episode, which brings back Evil Morty (or Eye-Patch Morty, if you prefer), and blows up the Citadel of Ricks yet again, as the end result of a catastrophic plan that spans the deaths of thousands and exists solely for one little boy to maybe possibly theoretically escape the tyrannical rule of his genius grandfather.
** 2021, Lucie Hemmen, The Teen Girl's Anxiety Survival Guide:Let's start by tackling the big-ticket self-care items that all girls need.
* A high price; a large expense.
** 1989, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on HUD-Independent Agencies, Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations for 1990, page 248:So we've got, like in my subcommittee, we've the space station, but overall in appropriations we have the space station, we have super collider, we have the mapping of the genetic code, and all three of these are really big, and then there is the superconductor, but all three are really big tickets, significant big tickets.
** 1992, Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics Partha Dasgupta, Partha Dasgupta, Douglas Gale, Economic Analysis of Markets and Games:However, we do want to assume that the big ticket is large enough relative to the bundle of resources committed to it so that positive saving on balance ( more saving beforehand than borrowing after ) will be required for feasibility .
** 2001, National Saving: Answers to Key Questions, page 24:Paying for postsecondary education is a big ticket above and beyond life-cycle saving for retirement.
** 2005, David Roland, Homeless in Vegas, page 160:And it's good you're goin' for the big tickets. Harder to find people to sign for the big ones. More likely to be audited.
** 2021, Philip Kidd, Report Planet:aunty vera had a double oven simpson fabulous next to thier wood stove. my mother thought it was the revolution of the decade. stove repairs was a big ticket.
* Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see big,‎ ticket.
** 2009, Ajay Ray, A Random Journey of Mind, page 86:I was driving and stopped at a red light, but unfortunately I had crossed the stop line by a faction of an inch (or, may be by a few inches), then the rookie traffic officer came to me with his big ticket pad. And wrote me a big ticket.

#### Related terms

* big-ticket
* big-ticket item