Pay dirt

to hit pay dirt

Isuzu Inc. hit pay dirt in the late '80s with its series of “Joe Isuzu” spots, featuring an oily, Satanic-looking salesman who told whoppers about Isuzu's genuine llama-skin upholstery and ability to run on tapwater.

Wittgenstein was closer to the pay dirt in one of his letters to the philosopher G. E. Moore, when he talked about thought with due attention to what fascinated Heisenberg on his deathbed: turbulence.

The DESI team had not expected to hit pay dirt so soon, Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, an astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley lab and a spokeswoman for the project, said in an interview.