smart money

Noun

smart money (uncountable)

1. Experienced, well-informed investors, gamblers etc considered as a group.
2. The money invested or bet by such people; by extension, the opinions of such people.

   The smart money is on a half percent cut in the basic bank lending rates before the end of the week.

3. Money paid by a person to buy himself off from some unpleasant engagement or some painful situation.
4. (military, historical) Money allowed to soldiers or sailors, in the English service, for wounds and injuries received; also, a sum paid by a recruit, previous to being sworn in, to procure his release from service.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, London: A[ndrew] Millar, OCLC 928184292:

     The reader may remember that Mr Allworthy gave Tom Jones a little horse, as a kind of smart-money for the punishment which he imagined he had suffered innocently.

5. (law) Vindictive or exemplary damages; damages beyond a full compensation for the actual injury done.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Burrill to this entry?)

Anagrams

• asymmetron