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noun

Pay rock, Pay dirt n.

(Mining) Earth, rock, etc., which yields a profit to the miner. (Western U. S.)

A discovery, especially after an exploratory process, which yields a profit or sought-after benefit; used especially in the phrase "to hit pay dirt".

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Etymology of 'Pay rock'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pay rock" Quotes from Famous Books

... small bar of pebbles and sand Wabi and Rod both set to work. The white youth had never before panned gold, but he had been told how it was done, and there now shot through him that strange, thrilling excitement which enthralls the treasure hunter when he believes that at last he has struck pay dirt. Scooping up a quantity of the gravel and sand he filled his pan with water, then moved it, quickly back and forth, every few moments splashing some of the "wash" or muddy water, over the side. Thus, filling and refilling his pan with fresh water, he excitedly ...

— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... most delicate negotiation concerning the division of the spoil. A mathematical partition of the fragmentary material that an old Italian well contains is extremely difficult if at all possible. After much debate it was agreed that after they struck pay dirt, each should dig in turn, each to have the bucketful that came under his trowel or fingers. Scattered fragments of the same pot and other complications were to be adjudicated by Mayhew, whose ignorance and ...

— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... of time. There ain't no pay dirt on this yere creek. We got five hundred feet up yonder plum full of holes, and we ain't shoveled out ...

— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... that, Fred was ready to throw up his hands in so far as Toby was concerned. He felt that he could never strike pay dirt in that quarter. There never was, and never would be again, quite such a paragon as Toby Farrell. It would be wasting time to try and bark up this tree. The scent had evidently led him in ...

— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... grew up in soil which does not produce lofty standards. Something of the mining-camp spirit still hung over California, which had been settled by adventurers, forty-niners, gold seekers, men who had left the East to "make a new start" where there was pay dirt. The State had a wild zest for life which was untrammeled by Puritanism. San Francisco had its Barbary Coast and in every restaurant its private dining rooms for women. Johnson himself was sprung from a father who was a "railroad ...

— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous