chip in

chip in idiom
  1. Contribute money, help, or advice, as in If we all chip in we'll have enough to buy a suitable gift, or Everyone chipped in with ideas for the baby shower. Mark Twain used this term in Roughing It (1872): “I'll be there and chip in and help, too.” [Mid-1800s]
  2. In poker and other games, to put up chips or money as one's bet. For example, I'll chip in another hundred but that's my limit or, as Bret Harte put it in Gabriel Conroy (1876): “You've jest cut up thet rough with my higher emotions, there ain't enough left to chip in on a ten-cent ante.” [Mid-1800s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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