the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question

the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question

A question that is very important and difficult or complex to answer. Taken from the title of the 1950s television game show based on the earlier radio program Take It or Leave It, which popularized the phrase "the sixty-four-dollar question." The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question now is whether he should choose his former opponent as a running mate. A: "Do you want to get Italian or Chinese tonight?" B: "Well, that's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn't it?"
See also: question
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

the 64,000 dollar question

If a question is the 64,000 dollar question, it is very important but very difficult to answer. Why should I, young, healthy and female, suddenly lose my hair? The sixty-four thousand dollar question remained unanswered. Note: Other large sums of money are sometimes used instead of 64,000 dollar. They asked the million-dollar question: `So what makes a good marriage?' The billion-dollar question is: how much are those benefits worth? Note: In the United States in the 1940s, there was a radio quiz show called `Take It or Leave It'. Contestants had to answer questions for prizes ranging from two dollars for an easy question to $64 for the hardest. A similar television quiz show in the 1950s increased the prize to $64,000 dollars.
See also: dollar, question
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

the sixty-four thousand dollar question

something that is not known and on which a great deal depends.
This expression dates from the 1940s and was originally the sixty-four dollar question , from a question posed for the top prize in a broadcast quiz show.
1996 Independent Will conversion make the society a better business? That is the $64,000 question.
See also: dollar, question, thousand
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

the sixty-four thousand dollar ˈquestion

(also the million dollar ˈquestion) a very important question which is difficult or impossible to answer: The sixty-four thousand dollar question for modern astronomy is ‘Is there life elsewhere in the universe?’This phrase originated in the 1940s as ‘the sixty-four dollar question’. It came from a popular US radio quiz programme at the time on which the top prize was $64.
See also: dollar, question, thousand
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, the

The hardest question of all; the crucial question. This term comes from the name of a popular television quiz show of the 1950s in which $64,000 was the top prize. It in turn may have been an inflation of the earlier sixty-four dollar question, named for the top prize on a CBS radio quiz show Take It or Leave It, which ran throughout the 1940s. This cliché may soon join its forerunner in obsolescence.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, the
  • the 64,000 dollar question
  • the sixty-four thousand dollar question
  • the sixty-four-dollar question
  • $64 question
  • 64
  • sixty-four-dollar question
  • go down the rabbit hole
  • rabbit hole
  • snowball into (something)
References in periodicals archive
How much control do we have over suicide is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.