Aussie Slang for Money: The Dated History

So many words for the same thing

Australians have a long list of words for money, and most of them have a paper trail. Using the dated evidence in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, this guide follows Australian money slang from the 1820s to the 1960s.

A caution first. The earliest recorded example only shows what someone wrote down first, so treat each date as “no later than”, not “invented in”.

The colonial years: coins you could hold

Dump began as a real coin. Green’s explains it as a small coin worth 1s 3d, made by punching a disc out of the middle of a Spanish dollar, which was once current in Australia. Its first Australian example is the Hobart Town Gazette of 14 December 1822, and the earliest one Green’s tags as Australian is the Sydney Morning Herald in 1843.

Rhino is a much older British word for money, going back to 1688 in Green’s. Its first Australian example is Bell’s Life in Sydney on 6 September 1845, which has a man “short of rhino”.

Brass for money is older still, with Green’s earliest example from 1526, and its first Australian example for that sense is Bell’s Life in Sydney in 1846.

Quid started out meaning a guinea, with its first Australian example in 1812 in James Vaux’s Vocabulary of the Flash Language. The Australian sense of money in general first appears in a Perth paper in 1904. (It meant a pound until Australia switched to dollars in 1966.)

1880s to 1910s: new words, many from overseas

Coin meaning money first turns up in Australia in the Bulletin in 1885, after centuries in British writing.

Squid, a pound, is an extension of quid, and its earliest example in Green’s is Australian: the Sydney Bulletin of 9 August 1902.

Stacks of money was originally American, and the first Australian example is the Bulletin of 15 November 1902. Dough for money is also originally American, with its first Australian example in the Adelaide Sport in 1912.

Shrapnel, meaning small change, is tagged originally New Zealand in Green’s. Its earliest example is from 4 April 1918, in Aussie, a magazine published in France.

Razoo, a small amount of money, is also tagged originally New Zealand and then Australian/New Zealand. Green’s says its origin is unknown, and its first example is the Newcastle Sun (NSW) of 30 September 1919.

1930s: Yiddish and rhyming slang

Motza (also spelled motser) is a large sum of money, and in a 1936 Banjo Paterson book a sure bet. Green’s traces it to the Yiddish matze, the Passover bread, whose big round shape suggested an oversized coin. Its earliest example in Green’s is from 1934.

Fiddley-did is rhyming slang for quid, meaning one pound. Green’s tags it Australian, and its first example is the Sydney Sportsman of 15 August 1936.

1960s: bikkies and moolah

Bikkies, and especially “big bikkies” for a large amount of money, is tagged Australian, with New Zealand use as well. Green’s suggests it is short for “biscuits”, likely alluding to the roundness of coins, and the first example is the Sydney Kings Cross Whisper in 1967.

Moolah is originally American, with Green’s earliest example in a New York paper in 1936 and its origin unknown. The first Australian example is in that same Kings Cross Whisper glossary in 1967.

What about dosh?

Plenty of Australians say “dosh”, but Green’s earliest example is American, from a Boston paper in 1843. It then disappeared, came back in Britain in the 1950s, and its earliest Australian example in Green’s is from 2007. That is the most surprising date in this guide, and it shows how a word can feel Australian long before the written record catches up.

What the dates tell us

Money slang is one of the busiest word families in English, so it is no surprise that much of Australia’s was borrowed. Rhino, brass, dough, stacks and moolah all arrived from Britain or America, while motza came from Yiddish and shrapnel and razoo seem to have started in New Zealand.

The most Australian touches are the practical ones: dump from an actual local coin, fiddley-did from rhyming slang, and bikkies from the shape of a coin.

Want to test yourself? In Aussie-fy, our daily game, you spot the genuine Aussie slang for an everyday word, and the archive has the answers to every past round. You may also like our guide to Aussie slang for being drunk.

Sources

All dates and region tags come from Green’s Dictionary of Slang: dump, rhino, brass, quid, coin, squid, stacks, dough, shrapnel, razoo, motser, fiddley-did, bikkies, moola, dosh.