Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US milit.) any wound that guarantees the victim a passage out of a war zone and back to the USA.

1945		War Medicine 8 357: A ‘million dollar wound.’ A fracture of the femur or similar wound, which results in no permanent serious disability but leads to permanent removal from the battle.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 428: There ain’t a goddam place you can get a million-dollar wound that it don’t hurt.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 173: Ain’ that some shit? Dusted off an’ gone home witha million dollars wortha gunge on his pecker, all the way to Michael Reese Hospital.
1989		Hackworth & Sherman About Face (1991) 55: You just prayed for a clean wound [...] a million-dollar wound to get you home.

(orig. US) to feel excellent, very cheerful, extremely well, in the best of spirits; thus taste like a million v., to taste very good.

1902		Suburban Citizen (DC) 17 May 6/5: First Billionaire: You’re not looking very well this morning. Second Billionaire: No. I feel like thirty million dollars.
1917		Bemidji Daily Pioneer (MN) 20 Aug. 1/2: As the young man says he is feeling ‘like a million bucks’ there is no reason for parental worry.
1918		Eve. Missourian (Columbia, MO) 14 Sept. 2/2: It would improve the health [...] and make a persson feel like a million dollars.
1925		E. Hemingway letter 21 June in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 164: I have been having a swell time [...] and feel like a million seeds.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 46: I had just climbed out from under the cold shower, feeling like a million dollars.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 43: I had some oysters that tasted like a million.
1935		S. Kingsley Dead End Act II: gimpty: How are you feeling? kay: All right. And you? gimpty: Like a million dollars!
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 103: I feel like a million bucks.
1947		Time 17 Mar. 43: You’ll go home feeling like a million dollars, rested and refreshed as never before! [DA].
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 96: I felt like a million dollars. I was adventuring in the crazy American night.
1968		G. Cuomo Among Thieves 232: He went out that day feeling like a million dollars.
1971		T. Thackrey Thief 291: I was feeling like a million bucks because the loot from the first score was in the same neighborhood.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 143: I felt like a million big ones. [Ibid.] 210: I felt like a million bucks.
1983		C. Heath A-Team 2 (1984) 102: Feelin’ better? Are you kiddin’? I’m like a million bucks.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 51: Mick the Muso looked a million quid.
1984		Flame : a Life on the Game 121: We added a full-length fox fur coat [...] I felt like a million dollars.
1993		Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘Lodi Dodi’ 🎵 Now I’m fresh, dressed, like a million bucks.
1999		Indep. Rev. 13 Oct. 8: I feel like a million dollars and I wonder where I have been all these years.
2008		T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 166: ‘How do you feel?’ ‘Like a million.’.
2012		T. Robinson ‘’Hot Enough For Ya? in Dirty Words [ebook] [H]e felt like a million bucks.

1. completely in love with.

1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Nov. 4/7: [He] said in it that ‘the ’ole pot,’ meaning Stead, ‘was, in the langwidge of the push, gone a million on the tart in tights’.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Aug. 40: [cartoon caption, ‘a clergyman addresseth a very badly injured tramp’] Proofs of Affection. / ‘You have certainly been unfortunate, my pooah friend; but remember the good Book says, “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.”’ / ‘Struth, Mister, He must be gone a million on me!’.
1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 187: George, hugging his wife, exclaimed: ‘Lord, mum, if it weren’t for you, I’d be gone a million on the minx.’.

2. (Aus./N.Z.) in a hopeless state.

1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Nov. 4/7: ’E gimme another bottle of champagne [...] an’ I’m gone a million.
1915		Sport (Adelaide) 8 Jan. 5/4: And now he is going a million / To try and save more dough.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘The Battle of the Wazzir’ in Moods of Ginger Mick [unpub. unrevised proof version] Fer young Bill, wus gone a million, an’ ’e never guessed the game .
1941		G. Casey ‘Short Shift Saturday’ in Mann Coast to Coast 209: If they drop their bundles they’re gone a million.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 197: He’s gone a million if the Bastard lamps him.
1963		‘Nino Culotta’ Gone Fishin’ 194: He says he’s a Fisheries Inspector, an’ ’e tells me I haven’t got a licence, an’ I got undersized fish, an’ I got an illegal net, an’ I’m gone a million.
1976		R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 75: You’re all gone a million.
1986		G. Casey ‘Short-shrift Saturday’ in L. Hergenhan Aus. Short Story 97: If they drop their bundles they’re gone a million.
1995		P. Barnes Luna Park Eclipses in New Theatre Qly (Cambridge) Aug. (1996) 205/1: jack: stone the crows and stiffen the lizard. alice: I’m gone a million, Jack, gone a million.

to succeed absolutely, to do very well.

1927		Printer’s Ink 141:1 70: Got something good for you this time. Just the thing in a knit traveling one-piece. Went over like a million dollars in our store in Seattle.
1946		Proc. Kentucky Mining Instit. 119/2: We had an opening party and the miners brought their families and we had flowers, balloons, free beer and sandwiches and it went over like a million dollars.
1949		Recreation 291: Reducing classes, too, go over like a million dollars. There is no trouble at all in selling a $15 ticket to a lady who is anxious to reduce.
1972		Photoplay Treasury 211: The act went over like a million and when the weary little troupe went home at midnight, Big Sister Mary Jane carried their first pay envelope!
1986		R.C. Reinhart History of Shadows 70: Well, my designs went over like a million dollars.
1999		K. Schildroth ‘Wrestling at the Chase’ in St Louis Post-Dispatch 🌐 Sam wanted to put wrestling on TV. [...] It went over like a million bucks. Other promoters saw this on TV from around the country and it set the stage for the next 40 years.

1. (US) to be extremely attractive; extremely smartly/fashionably dressed.

1915		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 54: Did you get that manager with the trick coat — looks like a million.
1918		G. Bowerman diary 5 May in Carnes Compensations of War (1983) 80: We saw some real honest to goodness American girls and they looked like a million dollars.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald V (1963) 97: If she looks like a million dollars she can talk about Russia, ping-pong or the League of Nations.
1922		T. Thursday ‘Art for Artie’ in Argosy All-Story 30 Dec. 🌐 They’re all dressed up like a million dollars.
1924		H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 273: He looks a million to me.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 144: Gee, you look like a million dollars.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 13: She’s got class an’ she dresses like a million dollars.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Social Error’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 454: Miss Harriet Mackyle may not look a million.
1939		C. Himes ‘With Malice Toward None’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 53: You’re looking well, you’re looking like a million.
1945		Good Housekeeping Dec. 259/1: I get some white paint and make Randy’s old ones look like a million dollars [DA].
1946		W.L. Gresham Nightmare Alley (1947) 122: Clothes that will make you look like a million bucks.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 25: She looked like a million dollars in gold.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 269: Looks a million dollars to me.
1951		M. Spillane Long Wait (1954) 90: She was a million bucks in a green dress under artificial lights and two million in bed.
1952		I, Mobster 40: They came in all tricked out like a million dollars.
1954		(con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 438: The cracker was dressed up like a million dollars.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 87: It was driven by a woman who looked like ten million dollars.
1964		Larner & Tefferteller Addict in the Street (1966) 89: I look like a million dollars with a sun tan, and everything is great. I’m healthy again.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 50: I spotted Jonathan. He looked like a million.
1975		T. Berger Sneaky People (1980) 210: Kid, you look like a million onna hoof.
1976		Cab Calloway Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 72: Man, we looked like a million dollars.
1978		R. De Christoforo Grease 145: We looked like a million bucks.
1981		A.K. Shulman On the Stroll 86: You look like a million.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 372: Nicola looked like a million dollars. Or a million pounds, anyway.
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 12: The guy looked like a million bucks.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 56: She’d look, quite sincerely, a million dollars.
2000		Observer 9 Jan. 31: He could wear my granny’s old cardie and still look like a million dollars.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 61: By the time he gets the thing [i.e. a damaged car] back it will look like a million dollars.

2. other than in dress, to look impressive, e.g. as a sporting performer.

1908		Pacific 58 18/1: If Long Beach ordains complete prohibition no one has a right to sell liquor, whether it is a beautiful hotel that looks like a million dollars or a drug store that looks like thirty cents.
1911		Day Book (Chicago) 7 Dec. n.p.: ‘Maquard always looked like a million dollars against us,’ said Manager Dean of the Phillies.
1912		Salt Lake Trib. (UT) 30 June 31/3: Zimmerman [...] looked like a million dollars to Gotham fandom on his recent tour with the Cubs.

a phr. used of a very sure bet.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 176/1: Million to a bit of dirt (Sporting, 1860). A sure bet requiring no caution. ‘It’s a million to a bit o’ dirt the Plunger pulls it off.’.