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A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
CUZ MONEY TALKS

Cash is King. Well, among other things. Check out this list of slang used to refer to the money we use in the US.

The ONE CENT coin ($0.01 or 1¢) commonly called a penny due to historical comparison with the British penny.
  • Pennies prior to 1982 were sometimes called COPPERS due to being made of 95% copper.
  • Pennies dated 1909–1958, displaying wheat stalks on the reverse, were sometimes called WHEATIES or WHEAT-BACKS
  • 1943 steel wheat pennies are sometimes nicknamed STEELIES.

The FIVE CENTS coin ($0.05 or 5¢) has been commonly called a nickel since 1866 because it is made of 25% nickel.
  • Nickels minted between 1942 and 1945 are nicknamed WAR NICKELS owing to their different metal content, removing the nickel for a mixture of silver, copper and manganese.

The QUARTER DOLLAR coin ($0.25 or 25¢) used to be called TWO-BITS but this is falling out of use.

SILVER - Dimes and quarters used to be sometimes collectively referred to as SILVER due to their historic composition of 90% silver prior to 1965.

Monetary units larger than 1 dollar are often referred to by the names of their coin counterparts:
  • $5 is a NICKEL
  • $10 is a DIME
  • $25 is a QUARTER

One eighth of a dollar or 12+1⁄2 cents is the Spanish 8-Real PIECE OF EIGHT coin that the U.S. dollar was initially based on.
  • TWO BITS is twenty-five cents;
  • FOUR BITS is fifty cents.
  • SIX BITS is 75 cents
  • EIGHT BITS is a dollar

ROLLING THE BANKNOTES

Banknotes may be collectively referred to as DEAD PRESIDENTS, although neither Alexander Hamilton ($10) nor Benjamin Franklin ($100) was President.
  • They are also referred to as WALLET-SIZED PORTRAITS OF PRESIDENTS – referencing the fact that people typically carry pictures in their wallets.

$1 BILL - sometimes called a SINGLE, a BUCK, a SIMOLEON or an ACE.
  • The dollar has also been referred to as a BEAN or BONE (e.g. twenty bones is equal to $20).
  • 1917 GREENBACK - originally applied specifically to the 19th century Demand Note dollars created by Abraham Lincoln to finance the costs of the American Civil War for the North. The original note was printed in black and green on the back side. It is still used to refer to the U.S. dollar (but not to the dollars of other countries).

$2 BILL - sometimes referred to as a DEUCE or a TOM

$5 BILL - has been referred to as a FIN, FIVER or FIVE-SPOT.

$10 BILL - is a SAWBUCK, a TEN-SPOT, or a HAMILTON.

$20 BILL - is a JACKSON, or a DUB, or a DOUBLE SAWBUCK.

$50 BILL - is a FROG among horse-race gamblers who consider it unlucky. It is sometimes referred to as a GRANT.

$100 BILL - is a C-NOTE (C being the Roman numeral for 100, from the Latin word centum)
  • Sometimes called a CENTURY NOTE
  • It can also be referred to as a BENJAMIN or BENNY (after Benjamin Franklin - pictured on the bill),
  • Also called a YARD ($300 is 3 yards and a $50 bill is a HALF A YARD).
  • A RACK is $1,000 in the form of ten $100 bills, banded by a bank
  • A one hundred dollar bill can also be called a BUCK, or a DOLLAR, but since a buck is also used for one dollar, the context needs to be clear.

$1000 DOLLARS OR MORE - occasionally referred to as LARGE (twenty large being $20,000, etc.).
  • A thousand dollars may also be referred to as a GRAND or G, K (as in KILO), or less commonly a STACK, a BOZO, as well as a BAND .

$100,000 DOLLARS - called a BRICK or a HONEY BUN.

A MILLION DOLLARS IS A ROCK - a million dollars is sometimes called a rock, popularized by several TV shows and movies, like The Sopranos: in one episode Tony Soprano states, “So adjusting for inflation I'm looking at half a rock?”
  • Another slang term for a million dollars is an M, as used in rap songs.
  • Financial institutions and applications will often use MM when writing shorthand for a million dollars, as a million is the product of the Roman numeral M (1000) times itself.
  • More common usage is a MIL.

A BILLION DOLLARS IS A YARD - a financial term for one billion dollars, This derives from the old British English word for a thousand million, a milliard, which has now been replaced by the 'short scale' name 'billion'. The term 'million' for a million dollars is often dropped when it is clear from context. e.g. "they manage a hundred bucks" means that they have assets of a hundred million dollars.

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