In the United States, there are many commonly used slang terms for money. Perhaps the most common is the term "bucks" as a reference for US Dollars. Other common slang terms for dollars include "cash," "dough," "moolah" and "smackers." There are various other slang terms for money as well, some of which are general terms and others that are specific to certain denominations of money.
Many slang terms denote paper bills but don’t distinguish an amount. In addition to the aforementioned terms, the slang terms "clams," "greenbacks" and "dead presidents" refer to paper bills. The latter term based on the fact that pictures of past U.S. presidents appear on the face of many bills.
Not all bills feature a president, however. The $100 USD bill, for example, features Benjamin Franklin. These bills are often called "Benjamins." Other slang terms for $100 USD bills include "bills," "C-notes" or simply "C's," which is a reference to the Roman numeral for 100.
Another letter used in reference to a specific monetary denomination is "K," which stands for thousands. If someone says, "I paid 5K," for example, it means that he or she paid $5,000 USD. "A grand" is another common slang term for money, and means $1,000 USD.
Many slang terms for money are used in reference to smaller denominations of paper bills. A $5 USD bill is sometimes called a "fiver" or a "fin." A $10 USD bill can be referred to as a "sawbuck." The number of US Dollars for any amount of money is often referred to as "bones," such as the term "50 bones" referring to $50 USD. "Bucks" is used in the same way, so "50 bucks" also would equal $50 USD.
There are even slang terms for money that are used to describe US coins. "Two bits" equals 25 cents, or one quarter. A potentially confusing aspect of slang terms for money is that the names of coins are often used as slang terms for bill amounts. For example, a "nickel" might be used to refer to $5 USD, and a "dime" might refer to $10 USD.
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anon334296
Post 50 |
Any one heard of the term "fence post" when referring to money? |
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anon309221
Post 49 |
Cash, moolah, jack, dollas OR dollars, gwop, guac, guapo, bucks, greenbacks, paper, semolians, dub, dead presidents, stack(s), rack(s), hundo, hunge, hunnit, yard, fiver, tener, single(s), cheese, chedder *or* chedda, clams, cashola, bones, benjamin, benji, coin, dub, fitty, dime, nickel, tension, scrilla, big faces, grand(s), dough, bread, scratch, money, guacamole', lettuce, mail, cabbage, smackers, smackeroonies, chips, c-note(s), g-note(s), bone(s), greens, wad, stash, cream, loot, bacon, duckets... |
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anon301503
Post 46 |
100 Dollar Bill - Cow. 50 Dollar Bill - Calf. 100 Dollar Bill and a 50 Dollar Bill together - Cow and a Calf. |
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anon299412
Post 45 |
Moolah, Green, Cash, Dough, are the only USA slang terms I've heard. I doubt if "cash" is even considered a slang term anymore. |
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anon285989
Post 44 |
Carney speak = fin, sawbuck, double, half-yard, yard, 5 spot when we had a 500 dollar bill, G note 1000 dollar bill. --Trooper John |
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anon279813
Post 43 |
$100-Hundie, heard this in Midwest casinos, as in "I made Five hundie", "or gimme a hundie." A collection of loose change: smash. I read this in the book Junkie by William Burroughs. $20: Twamp, initially referred to an amount of marijuana, now some use it to indicate Jackson bills. Awesome article. |
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anon268779
Post 42 |
Since the advent of ATMs: $20 bill = "SMU" = "Standard Monetary Unit" because USA ATMs only distribute 20-dollar bills, unlike machines in most countries that give multiple denominations. "SMU" is most commonly used by techies and geeks who use a lot of TLAs in their work and studies (TLA = three letter acronym). |
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anon266531
Post 41 |
What's a Celtic? |
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anon258464
Post 40 |
So does that mean the hundred k is equal to hundred grand, because k and grand both refer to thousand. |
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anon198775
Post 39 |
I absolutely enjoyed this article! I haven't heard the term "two bits" since my grandmother used it over 40 years ago. Nobody uses it today, and as for the poster above who used "scratch", that term was recently used in the movie Horrible Bosses. All very interesting. |
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anon193181
Post 38 |
Thank you for sharing this information. I'm not a native english speaker, so sometimes it gets very difficult to find the meaning of this slang terminology. Best. |
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anon188204
Post 37 |
you guys forgot: bread and jack, jingle, bone, cheddar, greens, nuggets, plums, wad, wedge, stash, cabbage, loot, pics of dead presidents, hog, bacon. |
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anon179261
Post 36 |
I had always heard of a $20 called a snap. |
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anon165947
Post 34 |
On the west coast: 1 - no one cares 5 - 5 10 - dime 20 - dub 50- 50 100- c-note, bill 1,000- stack 10,000 rack |
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anon156100
Post 33 |
$100 - also referred to as a barrel. $200 = two barrels. |
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anon149805
Post 32 |
1-singypoo 5-mija 10-tenant 20-bentley 50-black 100- Cocollo bait 1000-register 10000-bucket the correct term is gwap as a reference to guacamole.
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anon147237
Post 31 |
What's a somolian and why is it used to refer to dollars? |
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anon133580
Post 30 |
"Large" for $1,000. Said this way (outta one side of your mouth): "laaaage..." "That mope owes Joey 50 large. He's history." |
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anon133372
Post 29 |
$20 Yuppie Food Stamp. |
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anon132687
Post 28 |
a 1,000 dollars is called a stack so a couple of stacks would be 2,000 dollars. Five stacks = 5,000 and so forth. Paper = money.
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anon125889
Post 27 |
chedda, skrilla, duckets, moolah, cash, euros, dough, bacon, dollas, bucks ummmmm loot, bills, Benjamins, Bread, paper, Kala, big faces, gwap, dub, smackaroos. I think that about covers everything! |
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anon110043
Post 26 |
What is the correct spelling for guitus, gedus (rhymes with cheetus) |
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anon97293
Post 25 |
$100 = A Baby Maker |
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anon96552
Post 24 |
Scrilla, paper, kala, big faces |
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anon94434
Post 23 |
"Nickle and dime" means to pay a lot but in small increments, as in "The hotel rooms are cheap, but they nickel and dime you with extra charges." This has nothing to do with $5 or $10.
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anon88754
Post 22 |
it's not guap, or gwap. it's guac, as in short for guacamole, because it's green. know your slang! |
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anon85541
Post 21 |
1 dollar = single 5 = feva 10 = tension 20 = dub 50 = fitty 100 dollar = hun-dun 1000 = bundle all money can be greenbacks, bank, bread. |
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anon79240
Post 20 |
It's: 1 single 5 fin 10 sawbuck 20 dub 50 worker bee 100 bill |
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anon73814
Post 19 |
5 fin 10 sawbuck 20 Jackson 50 half yard 100 Benjamin 500 nickel 1000 dime |
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anon67293
Post 18 |
Scratch. |
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anon63145
Post 16 |
Below - it is not "GUAP" it is "GWAP". The term is an acronym for "George Washington on Paper" (or, dollars). |
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anon58924
Post 15 |
How about worthless? The FED is dismantling our economy. |
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anon57210
Post 14 |
some other words to describe U.S. currency.' Cheddah.' = Dollars. Government Cheese =Social Security checks, Welfare Checks, any form of entitlement money dispensed by the U.S Government. Earnings from work in the form of a paycheck on Friday is "Today the Eagle S*". although small pay checks may be spoken this way: "Today the Eagle Poops." |
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anon53384
Post 13 |
how do you say "gedus?" or how about some trim |
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anon51548
Post 11 |
A hundge is what we call $100.00. or like $300 is three hundge. |
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anon51282
Post 10 |
Smackeroos' i.e. "I'll give you 100 smackaroos' to paint my fence." |
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anon50143
Post 9 |
100 Dollars- a frog |
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anon47605
Post 8 |
To answer that last question moolah is simply just another term for money. |
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anon47172
Post 7 |
"K" stands for "Kilo", a thousand. Also, the actual phrase is "two cents' worth", not just "two cents'"; that's just more of the current practice of leaving out the preposition in colloquialisms - p.e., "hang", not "hang out", "pumped", not "pumped up", etc. |
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anon38740
Post 6 |
A common term from the 20's and 30's for the 100 dollar bill was "honey bee". That also spawned the slang "worker bee" for a 50 dollar bill. |
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anon29980
Post 5 |
What about 'paper'? It's 'guap' not 'quap' and I think that just refers to a large amount of cash. |
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anon27867
Post 4 |
Common slang terms for $20 include "double Sawbuck" and "Twamp". |
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anon10034
Post 3 |
Thanks for the additions! |
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anon9857
Post 2 |
1 Dollar Bill - Buck 100 Dollar Bill - Bill 1000 Dollars/Bill - 'G' (Grand) 10,000 Dollars - Dime 100,000 Dollars - Quap -Jason,Cleveland,Ohio |
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velikaribat
Post 1 |
How about moolah? |
