In Panama, a five-cent coin is a “real” (royal). I don’t know why. Due to U.S. influence, a 25-cent coin is, no kidding, a “cuata” (quarter).
All my reference books say the origin of quid is “obscure”. Most likely it’s from the Latin for “what”, or from the phrase “quid pro quo”. Maybe Cecil can do better?
This and this are the best cites I could find for slang terms for British money, but note that most of the nicknames fell out of currency 
with decimalisation in 1971. Various attempts have been made to think up new nicknames for the new money over the last thirty years, but none seem to have lasted very long. They were mostly based on the people shown on the notes (e.g. a newton for a pound when Isaac Newton’s picture was on a £1 note etc.)
When we dropped the paper pound in favour of a coin I heard it being described as a Thatcher – 'cos it’s thick, brassy and thinks it’s a sovereign.
Originally posted by jefflibbey
“…I’ve been looking for the origin of the word ‘quid’. I know it’s slang for the British pound, but WHY is it slang for pound?..”
As far as I reecall reading (possible faulty memory alert!), certain tobaccos were imported (or sold) in one pound units, wrapped in tarred cord, a “quid” of tobacco - the name transferred.
pre 1971 (ie; pre-decimal) names for British Coins.
“Coppers”
1/4d farthing
1/2d ha’penny (contraction og halfpenny)
1d penny
3d threp’ny (thrupn’y) (contraction of “threepenny”) bit
“silver”
3d Before 1947 there was a silver 3d piece known as a “joey”
6d (Victorian)Sprasy/Sprarsy (apparently from Romany), (Victorian) “thin” - this gave rise to “tanner” (rhymning slang “tanner and skin”)
1/- “bob”
2/- “Florin”, “Two Bob bit”
2/6 “Half a Crown” or “Half a Dollar”
5/- Crown or Dollar (until the late 1940s, the US dollar was about 4 to the pound)
10/- “Half a bar”, “Half a Quid”, “Ten bob note”
£1 A quid, A bar, A note.
21/- / £1-1/- A guinea
Notes
£1 A quid, A bar, A note.
25/- (in Silver coinage) (Georgian) “A pony in white”
£5 “Fiver” (rhymned as “Lady” or “Lady Godiva”
£10 “Tenner”
£20 “Score”
£25 pony
Walrus
Thank you, Walrus. That was the kind of information I was looking for!
Sam, I can’t see why your opinion would be humble on this seeing as you are qualified. The above story is the one I’ve always heard. Any idea where the use of the term “bits” comes from then?
There aren’t that many (or I’m not aware of many) UK nicknames for money that are specific to ‘new’ (decimal) currency - even ‘quid’, I would imagine, is a hangover from old money.
The only ones I can think of would be ‘nugget’ or ‘nug’ for pound coins, but maybe that’s just a local thing, and ‘note’
(also referring to pounds), most commonly used in exasperated statements such as “Bloody taxi cost me thirty notes”
DPWhite said
. The term “bit” goes back to at least The late 1700’s and early 1800’s and referred to the smallest denominations of Spanish made silver coins. These were 1/2 reales and 1 reales, worth about 6 cents and 12 cents in terms of US values at the time. Mainly I think it referred to the 1 real. It was a small coin, about the size of a US dime.
Walrus said
Sorry Walrus, but everton got it right with the reference to the 1688 cite. Tobacco had nothing to do with it. The phrase quid pro quo has been in English since 1565, and essentially means/meant “one thing for another.” The quid usage for a pound sterling was possibly a shortening of the Latin phrase. But we’ll probably never know for sure. My info comes from Chamber’s Dictionary of Etymology.
samclem wrote:
“…Sorry Walrus, but everton got it right with the reference to the 1688 cite. Tobacco had nothing to do with it. The phrase quid pro quo has been in English since 1565, and essentially means/meant “one thing for another.” The quid usage for a pound sterling was possibly a shortening of the Latin phrase. But we’ll probably never know for sure. My info comes from Chamber’s Dictionary of Etymology…”
Samclem,
Fair enough, I’ll put my hand up to having a fairly poor memory (but I did warn you it could be faulty).
Regards
Walrus
As for Germany (since you asked), there are hardly any nicknames for the coins.
The 10-Pfennig coin is, however, often called a Groschen, hearkening back to earlier days when that was an actually monetary unit.
Otherwise the coins are often refered as “Fünfer” for a 5-Pfennig coin or “Fünfziger” or “Fuffziger” (slangier) for 50-Pfennig coins. The Mark is just called a Mark.
Paper money is also usually just called by its amount or a derivative of the number “-er”. Only 100-Mark notes are sometimes (not very often) referred to as “ein Blauer” after its color, blue.
And alas, this will all be history as of January/February with the introduction of the euro.
My friends and I call them “Squaws”…sure get some strange looks using that terminology.
Oh, and I think when dimes were first introduced, they were actually called “dismes”
Then why are dubloons called “Pieces o’ Eight”?
Zenster The word “dubloon”[sic] is usually understood to be a Spanish gold coin. Doubloons(actually Escudos to numismatists) came in units of 8 escudos, 4, 2,1, and 1/2 escudos. This parallels the silver system.
The term “piece of eight” goes back to 1610, but it actually refers to the dollar-sized silver 8 reales coin rather than the smaller real coins. It was a “piece of eight(reals).”