50 Slang Terms for Money

50 Slang Terms for Money 50 Slang Terms for Money 50 Slang Terms for Money By Mark Nichol I find very little about money to be interesting, other than counting my own, but I’ve noted that there’s a rich fund of slang terms for money that can help enliven both casual and more serious content about currency and finance. Here’s a roster of slang synonyms in plural form for words for US currency in particular, many of which are useful for playful references to money or as options for evoking a historical period in fiction by using contemporary idiom: 1. Bank: money 2. Benjamins: a one-hundred-dollar bill (in reference to the portrait of Benjamin Franklin that distinguishes it) 3. Big ones: multiples of one thousand dollars 4. Bills: multiples of one hundred dollars 5. Bones: dollars (origin unknown) 6. Bread: money in general (on the analogy of it being a staple of life) 7. Bucks: dollars (perhaps from a reference to buckskins, or deerskins, which were once used as currency) 8. Cabbage: paper money (from its color) 9. Cheddar (or chedda): money (origin unknown, but perhaps from the concept of cheese distributed by the government to welfare recipients) 10. Clams: dollars (perhaps from the onetime use of seashells as currency) 11. Coin: money, either paper or coinage 12-13. Cs (or C-notes): multiples of one hundred dollars (from the Roman symbol for â€Å"one hundred†) 14. Dead presidents: paper money (from the portraits of various former US presidents that usually distinguish bills of various denominations) 15. Dime: ten dollars (by multiplication of the value of the ten-cent coin) 16. Dough: money in general (akin to the usage of bread) 17-18. Doubles (or dubs): twenty-dollar bills 19. Ducats: money (from the Italian coin) 20. Fins: five-dollar bills (perhaps from the shared initial sound with fives) 21. Five-spots: five-dollar bills 22. Fivers: five-dollar bills 23. Folding stuff: paper money 24. Greenbacks: paper money (from the color of the ink) 25. Gs: thousand-dollar bills (an abbreviation for grand) 26. Grand: one thousand dollars (as in â€Å"three grand† for â€Å"three thousand dollars†) 27. Large: thousand-dollar bills 28. Lettuce: paper money (from its color) 29. Long green: paper money (from its shape and color) 30. Loot: money (originally denoted goods obtained illicitly or as the spoils of war) 31. Lucre: money or profit (from the biblical expression â€Å"filthy lucre,† meaning â€Å"ill-gained money†) 32. Moola (or moolah): money (origin unknown) 33. Nickel: five dollars (by multiplication of the value of the five-cent coin) 34. Ones: dollars (also, fives for â€Å"five-dollar bills,† tens for â€Å"ten-dollar bills,† and so on) 35. Quarter: twenty-five dollars (by multiplication of the value of the twenty-five-cent coin) 36. Sawbucks: ten-dollar bills (from the resemblance of X, the Roman symbol for ten, to a sawbuck, or sawhorse) 37. Scratch: money (perhaps from the idea that one has to struggle as if scratching the ground to obtain it) 38. Shekels: dollars (from the biblical currency) 39. Simoleons: dollars (perhaps from a combination of simon, slang for the British sixpence and later the American dollar, and napoleon, a form of French currency) 40. Singles: one-dollar bills 41. Skrilla: money (origin unknown) 42. Smackers: dollars (origin unknown) 43. Spondulix: money (either from spondylus, a Greek word for a shell once used as currency, or from the prefix spondylo-, which means â€Å"spine† or â€Å"vertebra†; these have a common etymology) 44. Stacks: multiples of a thousand dollars 45. Tenners: ten-dollar bills 46. Ten-spots: ten-dollar bills 47. Two bits: twenty-five cents (a reference to pieces of eight, divisible sections of a Mexican real, or dollar) 48. Wad: a bundle of paper money 49. Wampum: money (from the Native American term wampumpeag, referring to native currency) 50. Yards: one hundred dollars There are, of course, many other terms, dated or current, including borrowings of foreign terms like dinero. What did I miss (or omit)? Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:When to use "on" and when to use "in"What's a Male Mistress?Threw and Through