Federal Reserve Note - Nicknames

Nicknames

U.S. paper currency has had many nicknames and slang terms. The notes themselves are generally referred to as bills (as in "five-dollar bill") and any combination of U.S. notes as bucks (as in "fifty bucks"), or, much less commonly, bones or beans. Notes can be referred to by the first or last name of the person on the portrait (George for One Dollar, or even more popularly, "Benjamins" for $100 notes).

See tables below for nicknames for individual denomination

• Greenbacks, any amount in any denomination of Federal Reserve Note (from the green ink used on the back). The Demand Notes issued in 1861 had green-inked backs, and the Federal Reserve Note of 1914 copied this pattern.
• "dead presidents", any amount in any denomination of Federal Reserve Note (from the portrait of a U.S. president on most denominations).
• fin, finif (from the Yiddish word for five), or finski is a slang term for a five-dollar bill
• sawbuck is a slang term for a ten-dollar bill, from the image of the Roman numeral X
• double sawbuck is slang term for a twenty-dollar bill, from the image of the Roman numeral XX, and in some cases can be used to denote a pair of ten-dollar bills, which would be double sawbucks, depending on the situation and type and amount of currency on hand.
• One hundred dollar bills are sometimes called "Benjamins" (in reference to their portrait of Benjamin Franklin) or C-Notes (the letter "C" is the Roman Numeral 100).
• One thousand dollars ($1000) can be referenced as "Large", "K" (short for "kilo"), "Grand" or "Stack", and as a "G" (short for "grand").
• The popularity of the Saturday Night Live skit Lazy Sunday has led to $10 notes sometimes being referred to as "Hamiltons".
• In Raymond Chandler's novel, The Long Goodbye, the protagonist Marlowe refers to a five thousand dollar bill as "a portrait of Madison," due to the president portrayed on the bill being James Madison.

Many more slang terms refer to money in general (moolah, paper, bread, dough, do-re-mi, freight, loot, cheese, cake, stacks, greenmail, jack, rabbit, cabbage, pie, cheddar, scrilla, scratch, etc.).