INSIDE: There are tons of different ways to say money, and I’ve listed them all out for you here. Bet you didn’t think there were this many. Keep the comments coming so the list can keep growing.
Woke up this morning wondering how many different words for “money” there were.
Here’s what I came up with:
- Bacon
- Banknote
- Bankroll
- Benjamins
- Big Ones
- Bills
- Biscuits
- Bones
- Booty
- Bounty
- Bread
- Bucks
- Bundle
- Cabbage
- Cake
- Candy
- Capital
- Cash
- Cheddar
- Cheese
- Chips
- Clams
- C-Notes
- Coin
- Dead Presidents
- Dinero
- Dosh
- Dough
- Ducats
- Fetti (short for “confetti”)
- Five-Spots
- Fivers
- Funds
- Gs
- Green
- Greenbacks
- Guap
- Guineas
- Hundos
- Kale
- Lolly
- Loot
- Lucre
- Mazuma
- Mint
- Moola
- Paper
- Racks
- Riches
- Scratch
- Skrilla
- Stacks
- Stash
- Smackers
- Tender
- Tenners
- Wad
- Wages
- Wonga
And then my favorite which I just stumbled across –> “Fun Tickets” Haha…
10 points to anyone who works that into a convo today ;)
What did I miss?
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UPDATE: Here’s a bevy of more alternatives and slang words from the community:
- “Bag” or “Get that bag” – a reference to making/earning money that I’ve heard more and more recently.
- Bananas – “My sister and I use this all the time…1 banana = $100”
- Bits – “I remember my Dad talking about bits… Even had a rhyme: 2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar… Based on the Spanish pieces of eight back in the colonial days.”
- Dollarines – from the movie “The Jerk.” (Pronounced dollar-ee-knees)
- Doubloons – “which sounds cooler out loud than it looks in print. It technically refers to Spanish gold coins but for real it’s the money language of pirates and buccaneers!”
- Fin – $5 bill
- Grease – like “greasing someone’s palm.”
- Pesa – “I travel a lot in Africa and they have a special payment system here called MPesa – where instead of having to have a bank account – money is deposited to your phone number – which you use to pay bills in a manner similar to internet banking. It was set up to allow the poor to transfer money/not have to use payday loan places/bank fees. Now payments from your MPesa phone account are encouraged everywhere – even the most posh club in Nairobi. And merchants like it because they don’t have the fee bite associated with credit cards. It is a real African success story that may get taken to North America. And it stands for M=mobile, Pesa= African for money.”
- Piastre – “In local French Québécois slang back at mid-twentieth century, a Dollar was often referred to as a Piastre”
- Reddies – £50 notes (along with more specific terms like “squid” for a pound, “monkey” for £500, “carpet” for £300 and “pony” for £25
- Sawbucks – $10 bill.
- Semolians – I’m in my late 60s and I remember hearing it many decades ago. Here’s a website that attempts to explain it: http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-sim1.htm
- Shekels
- Shinplasters – referred to paper money of low denomination back in the day
- Skins
- Snap – “In Menace II Society a guy says, “Who got snap for some petro?””
- Trumps – “I am Brazilian, and whenever my parents or friends talk about the dollar, they refer to it as “trumps”. And before Trump was president, they used to call it “Obamas”. It is always weird be in a conversation where this comes in… (Ex.: “How many trumps does this computer cost?” Or “How many trumps did you pay for it?””
- Two Bits – “when I was growing up in Montreal, the 0.25 cent coin was commonly referred to”
Thanks everyone! These are great! :)
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I remember my Dad talking about bits…even had a rhyme: 2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar…based on the Spanish pieces of eight back in the colonial days. How cool is that?
Answer: very!
Crinkle and rhino, courtesy of British tv show Blandings. “Hey governor, could you spot me the necessary rhino? I’m a little light on the crinkle.” We use them all the time now!
“Skins” is another term I’ve heard over the years.
Oooh like the Redskins?? ;)
“Bag” or “Get that bag” is a reference to making/earning money I’ve heard more and more recently.
That one makes sense!
haha this is pretty funny. Wish I had this list when I was trying to think up a blog name.
FunTickets.com would have been a great one :)
My favorite is dollarines from the movie ‘The Jerk.’ Pronounced dollar-ee-knees.
Haha – that’s a new one to me!
You know I read this title and jumped right over to make sure you had the best of all on the list. ;) Well done, sir.
Good branding, Miss Mazuma… I think of your site now before I think of the money!
Same :)
In fact, I didn’t even know it was another term for money until hearing the backstory!
Got a win right off the bat before even jumping into the blog and falling in love with it, haha…
“Sawbuck,” although referred specifically to the $10 bill.
“Shinplasters,” which referred to paper money of low denomination.
There must be a generational component to this vocabulary– I immediately thought of fins, sawbucks, and double sawbucks.
Of course Generation Z would need a double sawbuck to have the same buying power as our generation’s fins…
You guys can keep your fins and sawbucks ;)
I’ve always been partial to doubloons, which sounds cooler out loud than it looks in print. It technically refers to Spanish gold coins but for real it’s the money language of pirates and buccaneers!
Another fun side note – I used to listen to this video game show on the college radio station and any time they would talk about money they would say “fun dollars” – I think for some reason never made clear they weren’t allowed to talk about money so they would say fun dollars instead. Of course they always said it with the knowing sarcasm of college students haha
That’s great!!
And much less chance of confusion vs Fun Tickets :)
A “Shinplaster” was a 25 cent fractional paper currency bill in Canada. It was issued in 1923. When I was a kid in the ’50s there were still some around at coin dealers.
But when I was growing up in Montreal, the 0.25 cent coin was commonly referred to as “two bits.”
And in local French Québécois slang back at mid-twentieth century, a Dollar was often referred to as a Piastre.
Cool! Didn’t know about these – I added them to the list!