idiomsphrase-meaningphrase-originphrasesslang
This is one of those common phrases that I have never really questioned until now.
According to the free dictionary, "Big cheese" means an "important person".
But what on earth does "cheese" have to do with being important? Where did this phrase come from?
Various dictionaries have different things to say.
What price [fame/success/victory etc.]?
something that you say which means it is possible that the fame, success etc. that has been achieved was not worth all the suffering it has caused
What price victory when so many people have died to make it possible?
(Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, 2nd ed.)
price [...]
what price (something)? what are the chances of (something) happening now?
(Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged)
What price something?
What is the value of something?; What good is something? (Said when the value of the thing referred to is being diminished or ignored.)
Jane's best friend told us all about Jane's personal problems. What price friendship? Jack simply declared himself president of the political society. What price democracy?
(McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs)
what price ——? used to ask what has become of something or to suggest that something has or would become worthless : what price justice if he were allowed to go free?
(New Oxford American Dictionary 2nd edition, from OS X)
Apart from Collins's strange definition, it seems that the general meaning of "what price X?" is "what's the value of X?" (not "what's the price of X", in the modern sense of price).
As for how it came to be, my wild speculation of the day is that it could have been used grammatically in an anaphoric expression, eg What price is freedom to us if we tolerate this tyranny? What price justice? etc.
Etymonline.com says of handy:
Meaning "conveniently accessible" is from 1640s.
To come in handy means something will be handy or useful in the near future, that it will become handy.
The earliest verifiable examples I found in Google Books are both from 1843.
First, in a "Weekly Journal of Gardening" column of The Gardener and Practical Florist:
CELERY, as we always recommend in small gardens, should be planted out at various seasons, and if there be any left in the seed bed, another row will come in handy. Earth up that which is advancing. LETTUCES in the seed bed may be thinned, and those taken out may be planted.
July 15, 1843.
Second, in Tales of the Colonies, or, The Adventures of an Emigrant, Volume 2:
"What have we got here ? a pair of handcuffs ; ah ! these come in handy ; the bushranger won't want handcuffs any more, but they'll do for his mate."
We can also find some slightly early uses of the similar to come handy. It was once used similarly and as often to come in handy, but lately has become rarer.
An October 1824 The London Magazine prints a letter from summer 1821:
please your oner,
hoping your oner wont be displeasd at my boldness and I send a little basket of eggs-good fresh eggs-and they were lade by the little black hen that's three yeer ould come Michaelmas eve the day that I send home your oner's shute— and the times are very hard intirely — intirely — plase your oner from
your oner's sarvent to comand,
Timotheus Kinnealy.
the woman hopes the eggs wil come handy to the young mistris out of her confinement. — tuseday mornin.
Best Answer
It appears to be from Persian and Urdu.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cheese#cheese_Noun_200