Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition


Money

Mon′ey

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Moneys
(#)
.
[OE.
moneie
, OF.
moneie
, F.
monnaie
, fr. L.
moneta
. See
Mint
place where coin is made,
Mind
, and cf.
Moidore
,
Monetary
.]
1.
A piece of metal, as gold, silver, copper, etc., coined, or stamped, and issued by the sovereign authority as a medium of exchange in financial transactions between citizens and with government; also, any number of such pieces; coin.
To prevent such abuses, . . . it has been found necessary . . . to affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of such particular metals, as were in those countries commonly made use of to purchase goods. Hence the origin of coined
money
, and of those public offices called mints.
A. Smith.
2.
Any written or stamped promise, certificate, or order, as a government note, a bank note, a certificate of deposit, etc., which is payable in standard coined money and is lawfully current in lieu of it; in a comprehensive sense, any currency usually and lawfully employed in buying and selling.
☞ Whatever, among barbarous nations, is used as a medium of effecting exchanges of property, and in the terms of which values are reckoned, as sheep, wampum, copper rings, quills of salt or of gold dust, shovel blades, etc., is, in common language, called their money.
4.
In general, wealth; property;
as, he has much
money
in land, or in stocks; to make, or lose,
money
.
The love of
money
is a root of all kinds of evil.
1 Tim vi. 10 (Rev. Ver. ).

Mon′ey

,
Verb.
T.
To supply with money.
[Obs.]

Webster 1828 Edition


Money

MONEY

,
Noun.
plu.
moneys.
1.
Coin; stamped metal; any piece of metal, usually gold, silver or copper, stamped by public authority, and used as the medium of commerce. We sometimes give the name of money to other coined metals,and to any other material which rude nations use a medium of trade. But among modern commercial nations, gold, silver and copper are the only metals used for this purpose. Gold and silver, containing great value in small compass, and being therefore of easy conveyance, and being also durable and little liable to diminution by use, are the most convenient metals for coin or money, which is the representative of commodities of all kinds, of lands, and of every thing that is capable of being transferred in commerce.
2.
Bank notes or bills of credit issued by authority, and exchangeable for coin or redeemable, are also called money; as such notes in modern times represent coin, and are used as a substitute for it. If a man pays in hand for goods in bank notes which are current, he is said to pay in ready money.
3.
Wealth; affluence.
Money can neither open new avenues to pleasure, nor block up the passages of anguish.

Definition 2024


money

money

English

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).
  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.
  9. (as a modifier) Of or pertaining to money; monetary.
    money supply;  money market

Synonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Statistics

Most common English words before 1923: keep · myself · morning · #274: money · door · round · kind