# currency of a country (informal)



## tinlizzy

In the US a dollar is also called a buck. 
UK=quid
China=quay or kwai

Do all countries have nicknames for their currencies, and if there is a nickname how did the nickname get started?


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## alexacohen

In Spain money is "pasta".
We haven't yet a nick for the euro. At least I haven't heard of it.


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## PocketCathy

In the U.S. we often say "bucks" or if one is feeling particularly silly and old-fashioned, "smackaroos". If we're talking in the thousands, people will say "grand" or "G's".

I heard U.S. dollars referred to as "divisa" when I was in Cuba. The merchants didn't want Cuban currency and would always ask if we had "divisa" instead.


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## tinlizzy

PocketCathy said:


> I heard U.S. dollars referred to as "divisa" when I was in Cuba. The merchants didn't want Cuban currency and would always ask if we had "divisa" instead.


 
Is divisa derived from a spanish word or has a Visa charge card become synonymous with the dollar, I wonder?


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## fsabroso

tinlizzy said:


> Is divisa derived from a spanish word or has a Visa charge card become synonymous with the dollar, I wonder?


No. "divisa" is a Spanish word for any country currency 


> divisa:*
> 4.     * f. Moneda extranjera referida a la unidad del país de que se trata. U. m. en pl.
> Source.


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## Horazio

Here in Veneto (north east) I often use "schei" (money) it's dialect.


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## Etcetera

In Russia, the national currency has a bunch of nicknames, the most popular being бабки (b*a*bki; the word is oddly similar to the one meaning old women, but I don't know if there's a close connection). 

And we, too, call dollars 'bucks'. Interestingly, in Russian the word has acquired second plural ending - this must sound pretty funny to Russian-speaking Americans, I guess.


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## ernest_

Since the euro is relatively new, nobody has devised a nickname for it yet. We used to call our former currency, the pesseta (literally "little piece") "pela" or "peles" in plural, which means "peel".


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## Antpax

Hi,

In Madrid we have adopted the old expression for 5 pessetas "pavo" (also called "duro) to call euros.

Cheers.

Ant


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## Woland

we usually call it ''*bani'*'. It has various nicknames anyway. Some call it ''*bănet*'',others ''*gologani'*' .


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## ernest_

Antpax said:


> In Madrid we have adopted the old expression for 5 pessetas "pavo" (also called "duro) to call euros.



Interesting. We don't use "pavo" round here. In fact, I've only heard this word in American movies dubbed into Spanish. It sounds very American to me. It was always "peles" and "duros" here.


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## ukuca

In Turkish we say: 
"kağıt" (originally means: paper)
"kafa" (originally means: head)
and also: "mangır", "papel"


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## The Scrivener

In the UK, as well as being called a quid, the pound is also a nicker.

1,000 pounds = a grand or "bag of sand" (London Cockney rhyming slang).

Loose change of low value is sometimes referred to as shrapnel.


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## mgwls

In Argentina (well, at least in Buenos Aires) we call the national currency (pesos) "guita". Guita also used to mean cents, but this usage is now only used by the older people. 

In addition fixed amounts of money have their own names:
$100 = "una gamba"
$1,000 = "una luca" (2000 dos lucas, 3000 tres lucas, etc)
$1,000,000 = "un palo" (for 2M, 3M, etc it's same as the previous)

Regarding this, it's worth mention that when we talk about US dollars, U$S 1,000 and U$S 1,000,000 are often called "una luca verde" and "un palo verde" respectively ('a green "luca"' and 'a green "palo"')


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## irene.acler

Horazio said:


> Here in Veneto (north east) I often use "schei" (money) it's dialect.


 
Here in Trentino we use "schei" as well


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## tinlizzy

Etcetera said:


> And we, too, call dollars 'bucks'. Interestingly, in Russian the word has acquired second plural ending - this must sound pretty funny to Russian-speaking Americans, I guess.


 
We says bucks, plural, also.


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## fsabroso

Hi:

In Peru we call to the money  "*plata*": Do you have money? _"¿tienes plata?
_and this is our "*Peruvian money glossary*"

In Mexico they call it "*feria*", Do you have money? ¿_tienes feria_?


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## DrWatson

In Finland some people call the euro *ege*. A colloquial example sentence might go something like: *"Mullon viis egee"* = I've got five euros. There are a lot more nicknames for the euro, and you can probably coin one yourself if you like. It just has to resemble the original word, if by nothing more than by the first letter being E. You'll be understood from the context.

The previous currency (Finnish Mark) is sometimes being referred to as *mummonmarkka *or *mummo*, meaning granny's Mark or granny respectively. I guess the name comes from the fact that a part of the elderly, being used to the Mark, still convert the prices to understand the value of a product, for example.


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## Incassable

tinlizzy said:


> In the US a dollar is also called a buck.
> UK=quid
> * China=quay or kwai*
> 
> Do all countries have nicknames for their currencies, and if there is a nickname how did the nickname get started?



We use to write it *kuai* in PinYin, the official phonetic writing system in China ;-), but it sounds the same as yours

In france we had so many names for the *Franc, *i am sad we don"t have nicknames for euro yet !

A franc was said *balles*, only plural "T'as pas 100 balles?"
And we had a lot of names for 10 000 francs (1 500 €) : brique (brick), patate (potato) ...


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## remi6180

We have a similar situation in France with the euro. As incassable was saying we had slang words for the francs but people haven't come up with slang words for the euro. Words that were used for francs don't (yet?) apply to the euros. That's also due to the fact that people up to the age of about 25 still use francs regularly when talking about large sums of money (house, car prices etc...) and therefore need to distinguish clearly when they are talking in francs or euros.


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## kusurija

Czech:
Kačky
1 KČ = kačka (a little duckie)
5 KČ = bůro/búro (from Boer/peanut or who-knows-what)
10 KČ = pětka (It means The five!)
100 KČ = kilo (from Greece 1000!)
1000 KČ = tác...((serving) tray)


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## Outsider

There were a few colloquial terms for Portugal's former currency, the _escudo_. The most common was *paus* ("sticks", only used in the plural). A thousand escudos were colloquially called one *conto* ("thousand").

As in other countries, these words have not been extended to the euro, no doubt to avoid confusion between the old currency and the new. There are no colloquial terms for the euro.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

PocketCathy said:


> I heard U.S. dollars referred to as "divisa" when I was in Cuba. The merchants didn't want Cuban currency and would always ask if we had "divisa" instead.


Divisa in Spanish means "foreign currency".


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## Captain-Cook

hello

What would it mean if would say "Dos Chores para buscar"?

Hope to hear from someone

Thanks


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## Woland

Etcetera said:


> And we, too, call dollars 'bucks'. Interestingly, in Russian the word has acquired second plural ending - this must sound pretty funny to Russian-speaking Americans, I guess.


 
It's very funny,indeed. I believe it's a slang,since I don't remind to have studied this word at school  Do you guys write it буксы or бaксы since you said it has the second plural ending?


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## kusurija

Woland said:


> It's very funny,indeed. I believe it's a slang,since I don't remind to have studied this word at school Do you guys write it буксы or бaксы since you said it has the second plural ending?


In Lithuanian USD also has second ending: Nom. sg.: baks_as _pl.: baks_ai _


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## ronanpoirier

Outsider said:
			
		

> There were a few colloquial terms for Portugal's former currency, the _escudo_. The most common was *paus* ("sticks", only used in the plural). A thousand escudos were colloquially called one *conto* ("thousand").


Here in Rio Grande do Sul, we also say "conto" but it's to any value. We also say here "pila" and people usually use it without its plural form, even if the number is bigger than 1. If in the value we have cents (which we call "centavos") then we use our currency regular name.


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## Outsider

Now, this is a funny coincidence. In Brazil, as you know, the word "pau" has a certain obscene meaning. Well, in Portugal it's "pila" that has the same obscene meaning.


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## Etcetera

Woland said:


> It's very funny,indeed. I believe it's a slang,since I don't remind to have studied this word at school  Do you guys write it буксы or бaксы since you said it has the second plural ending?


Sure, it's slang. And it's pronounced as баксы.

It's not the only example of an English word acquiring second plural ending in Russian. Рельсы are originally rails, and клипсы were clips.


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## albondiga

PocketCathy said:


> In the U.S. we often say "bucks"



When I was in India, I was surprised to find that they use "bucks" for rupees too!  I had to adjust to hearing "fifty bucks" and interpreting it as "fifty rupees" (instead of "fifty dollars")!


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## Jeedade

It seems the Euro-countries have not really been very creative yet inventing nicknames for the Euro. The Germans sometimes refer to it as “Teuro” which is formed out of the words “teuer” (expensive) and “Euro”, when they are complaining that prices have gone up. Here are some Dutch pre-Euro ones:

Coins:
Fl 2,50 = “Rijksdaalder” or “Riks” or “Knaak”
Fl 1,- = “Piek” (peak)
Fl 0,25 = “Kwartje” (little quarter)
Fl 0,10 = “Dubbeltje” (little double, because it’s worth 2 “Stuivers”)
Fl 0,05 = “Stuiver”

Notes:
Fl 1000,- “Rooie rug” (red backside)
Fl 100,- “Meijer”
Fl 25,- “Geeltje” (little yellow one)
Fl 10,- “Joet”


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## macta123

In Hindi Rupees is called : Rupayya (Rupaiha)
 In Bengali the same is called : Taka


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## alex.raf

Though Iranian currency is *Rial*, here we use *Toman.
*Ten rials is equal to one toman.


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## OneStroke

Cantonese:
文 (man4 -> man1) (Usually written as 蚊 except in academic contexts because 蚊 is pronounced man1 in Cantonese. However, 文 and 蚊 are homophones in Putonghua. 文 was standard in Classical Chinese.)

The Hong Kong Dollar is also known as a buck.


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## fdb

In China the ten yuan banknote is (or was until recently) called "mao". (Guess whose picture is on it).


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## DearPrudence

In *French*, with the franc, we were not really imaginative:

*10 balles *= 10 francs (balles = balls, bullets, generally not used in the singular)

Then, for big figures, we had
*bâtons *_(sticks)_, *briques*_(bricks)_, *patates*_(potatoes)_, *sacs *_(bags)_
All represent 1,000,000 anciens francs = 10,000 francs
We generally used them when we talked about houses:
_"Cette maison coûte 100 briques."_ (people of the older generation may still use "ancien francs" for houses)

But nothing since the euros. We just call them euros


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## apmoy70

There's a similar thread here:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=163246

In Greek (generic terms):
(drachma era):
«Φράγκο/φράγκα»
/'fraŋgo/ [neut. nominative sing.] /'fraŋga/ [neut. nom. pl.]
It derives from the French _franc_.
«Λεφτά»
/le'fta/ [neut. nom. pl.] (appears only in pl.), from the name for the 1/100 denomination of the Greek drachma, the «λεπτό(ν)/λεπτά» /le'pto(n)/ [neut/ nom. sing.] /le'pta/ [neut. nom. pl.] and colloquially, «λεφτά» /le'fta/
(€ era):
«Λεφτά» (see above), and
«Ευρώπουλo/Ευρώπουλα»
/e'vropulo/ [neut. nominative sing.] /e'vropula/ [neut. nom. pl.]
Compound, «Ευρώ» /ev'ro/ which is the Greek name for the € + productive suffix «-πουλος» /pulos/ meaning _descendant of_, originated from the Peloponnese in the 10th century, but has become very widespread throughout the whole Greece as a patronymic suffix


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## OneStroke

fdb said:


> In China the ten yuan banknote is (or was until recently) called "mao". (Guess whose picture is on it).



I've never drawn the connection between Mao and mao, but doesn't mao refer to ten cents? (10 yuan = 10 kuai...)


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## sumonchy

Here in Bangladesh we called "Taka". Money is called "Taka".


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## DearPrudence

Hi sumonchy 

"taka" is the official name of the currency in Bangladesh. But do you have an informal name for it?
If no, I am afraid this is off-topic 

Best,

DearPrudence,
Forer@ & Moderator


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## Pedro y La Torre

DearPrudence said:


> In *French*, with the franc, we were not really imaginative:
> 
> *10 balles *= 10 francs (balles = balls, bullets, generally not used in the singular)



Canadians use ''balles'' for the dollar too, as well as ''sous'' (t'as cinq sous là ?) and ''piastre'' (though I hear this one less regularly).


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## HUMBERT0

Our currency is the Peso

In my neck of the woods:
Moneda nacional = national currency
Oro  (gold)= Dólar;   Plata (silver)=Peso
Also: varos, bolas (balls), billullo, lana (wool)


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## Gavril

PocketCathy said:


> In the U.S. we often say "bucks" or if one is feeling particularly silly and old-fashioned, "smackaroos". If we're talking in the thousands, people will say "grand" or "G's".
> 
> I heard U.S. dollars referred to as "divisa" when I was in Cuba. The merchants didn't want Cuban currency and would always ask if we had "divisa" instead.



Besides "bucks", a few more terms for the US dollar are

_bones
beans
clams
smackers
_
The first three are similar to "bucks", but more idiomatic/contextually restricted (e.g., a cab driver once told me that I owed him "18 beans"). The word "smackers" (like the variant "smackeroos" mentioned above) sounds a little silly nowadays, but as with a lot of words/phrases, you can use it in some contexts if it seems as though you're aware of its silliness.

For thousands of US dollars, you can also say
_
big ones 
large _(e.g., "15 large" = $15,000)


Canadian dollars:

_loonie _: a Canadian $1 coin with a picture of a loon (bird) on one of its faces ; sometimes (commonly?) used for C$1 in general
_twoonie / toonie _: a Canadian $2 coin ; may also be commonly used for the general quantity C$2 (again, not sure about how commonly)


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## 涼宮

In Venezuelan Spanish the thing goes like this:

Bolívares= bolo

Money in general= plata (silver) or billullo, or real. (pronounced as riál)

When you're talking about thousands you say 'lucas'. example: can you give me 3 thousands? ¿me prestas 3 lucas? (note: 3 thousands bolívares are like 1 dollar or something)

When you're talking about 100 thousands until 999 999 you say 'tablas'. Example: Este celular me costó 6 tablas. This cellphone cost me 600 thousands.

When you're talking about millions you say 'palos' (sticks). Ese carro cuesta 45 palos. That car costs 45 millions.

I'm using the old currency as a reference, the new one has 3 less zeros. So, 100 000 = 100. But everyone still uses lucas, tablas and palos.

I don't know their etymology, I'd love to know it because I find very curious such names.


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## e2-e4 X

Etcetera said:


> In Russia, the national currency has a bunch of nicknames, the most popular being бабки (b*a*bki; the word is oddly similar to the one meaning old women, but I don't know if there's a close connection).
> 
> And we, too, call dollars 'bucks'. Interestingly, in Russian the word has acquired second plural ending - this must sound pretty funny to Russian-speaking Americans, I guess.



In my experience, "бабки" is money in general.  I can't remember any special name for roubles (except "тугрики", but this is more ironic than slangy), but we can call a thousand roubles as "штука" (a thing, but the meaning is less wide and more narrow), and we can call a million roubles as "лимон" (because of the similar sound; the word means "lemon", and the stress is on the second syllable). The two can be used for reference to a thousand or a million of other things, too (for example, a thousand bucks — "штука баксов", the word "баксы" can be omitted if understood from context).

Interesting enough, we have a lot of slang terms for dollars:
- баксы (already mentioned);
- грины ("greens"), зелёные (the translation of the word "green ones");
- капуста ("cabbage", this is a collective noun, it can also be used to refer to money in general).


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## rusita preciosa

e2-e4 X said:


> I can't remember any special name for roubles


The old nick* деревянные */derevyannye/ (wooden ones) indicated that the rouble was not convertible into major currencies.


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## Perseas

apmoy70 said:


> In Greek (generic terms):
> (drachma era):
> «Φράγκο/φράγκα»
> /'fraŋgo/ [neut. nominative sing.] /'fraŋga/ [neut. nom. pl.]
> It derives from the French _franc_..........


I 'd like to add that especially for the older generations there was also another term to denote money in general; "παράδες" [sing. "παράς"] with obvious turkish origin (maybe a persian loan).


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## Messquito

tinlizzy said:


> China=quay or kwai


kuai is written 塊 and it means lump (a lump of gold), piece (a piece of cake), bar (a bar of chocolate) or something like that.
Also, in Taiwan, we used to have 毛mao2(lit. hair) as a colloquial term for 角jiao3(dime), but we don't use them anymore since the smallest monetary unit is now 1 dollar.


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## Encolpius

Hungarian Forint is *ruppó *in slang.


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## KalAlbè

*Haiti*:

Generally money is called either _lajan _or _kòb_. Informal terms include: _lamama, tyotyo, mago_


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## Stoggler

Encolpius said:


> Hungarian Forint is *ruppó *in slang.



Does ruppó mean anything?


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## Encolpius

It means nothing. The etymology is from Gypsy rup [silver] and maybe Indian rupee.


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## Stoggler

Encolpius said:


> It means nothing. The etymology is from Gypsy rup [silver] and maybe Indian rupee.



Thanks


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## Circunflejo

ernest_ said:


> We used to call our former currency, the pesseta (literally "little piece") "pela" or "peles" in plural,



It seems you forgot how to write its name: _peseta_; not pesseta.

The plural of _pela_, in Spanish, is _pelas_. If I'm not wrong, _peles_ would be the plural in Catalan.


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## bibax

In Czech we have even nicknames for some foreign currency units (many of them are forgotten nowadays):

dollar ... *doláč* (Czech suffix *-áč*, like in koláč = kolache)
buck ... always translated* babka* f. (in movies, literature: ten bucks = deset babek), cf. Russian бабка;

franc (Czech spelling frank) ... *frantík* (= Frankie, a hypocoristic for František = Frank), frantík also means 'Frenchman';

mark (Czech spelling marka f.) ... *mařena* (a hypocoristic for Marie);

schilling (Czech spelling šilink) ... *šilas, šílenec* (= madman, šílený = mad, insane);

koruna f. (corona, crown) ... *kačka* (a little duck or a hypocoristic for Kateřina);

€ ... *euráč* (similarly like doláč), *éčko* (the letter E), éčko means also ecstasy (the drug);


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## AnythingGoes

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Canadians use ''balles'' for the dollar too, as well as ''sous'' (t'as cinq sous là ?) and ''piastre'' (though I hear this one less regularly).


My favorite québécois money slang is _trente sous_ for a quarter dollar. _Sou_ is (perhaps outdated) slang for a cent, so it seems bizarre that they call a twenty-five-cent coin "thirty cents".

There's a complicated but logical explanation, the finding of which I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.


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