money

Etymology

From Middle English moneie, moneye, borrowed from Old French moneie (“money”), from Latin monēta (“money, a place for coining money, coin, mint”), from the name of the temple of Juno Moneta in Rome, where a mint was. Displaced native Middle English schat (“money, treasure”) (from Old English sceatt (“money, treasure, coin”)), Middle English feoh (“money, property”) (from Old English feoh (“money, property, cattle”), whence English fee). Doublet of mint, ultimately from the same Latin word but through Germanic and Old English, and of manat, through Russian and Azeri or Turkmen.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌni/, [ˈmɐni]

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌni/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌni
• Hyphenation: mon‧ey

Noun

money (usually uncountable, plural moneys or monies) (plural only used rarely and only in certain senses)

1. A legally or socially binding conceptual contract of entitlement to wealth, void of intrinsic value, payable for all debts and taxes, and regulated in supply.
2. A generally accepted means of exchange and measure of value.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.

   • 2013 August 10, “Can China clean up fast enough?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

     At the same time, it is pouring money into cleaning up the country.

   Before colonial times cowry shells imported from Mauritius were used as money in Western Africa.

3. A currency maintained by a state or other entity which can guarantee its value (such as a monetary union).

   money supply;  money market

4. Hard cash in the form of banknotes and coins, as opposed to cheques/checks, credit cards, or credit more generally.
5. The total value of liquid assets available for an individual or other economic unit, such as cash and bank deposits.
6. Wealth.

   He was born with money.

7. An item of value between two parties used for the exchange of goods or services.
8. A person who funds an operation.

Further reading

• money in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• money in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• money at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

• money on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• yenom