pelf
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of pelf
1300–50; Middle English < Old French pelfre booty
Explanation
Empty your sister's piggy bank and you'll have a pocket full of pelf, or money. It's going to take a lot more pelf than that to buy that fancy bicycle you've got your eye on, though! This old-fashioned word for money isn't used much these days—you're much more likely to say "cash," "dough," or even "cheese." When it was in fashion, pelf often referred to stolen cash, and the word can be traced back to the Old French pelfre, "loot," a source it shares with pilfer, "steal."
Vocabulary lists containing pelf
Selection Vocabulary 1, Unit 1
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Selection Vocabulary 3, Unit 1
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Society and Solitude
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It borrowed until it couldn't borrow anymore to pay for a slew of programs, public employee pensions and other pelf it couldn't afford.
From US News • May 26, 2016
Marks's organization man is anybody who will not rock the boat, either from fear of being noticed or hope of future pelf.
From Time Magazine Archive
Since he was said to control the billion-dollar Kreuger & Toll pyramid with slightly over $250,000 key securities, Titan Kreuger's contempt for personal pelf was natural.
From Time Magazine Archive
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, And how one ought never to think of one's self, And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking.
From Time Magazine Archive
Who loves thee not is traitor to himself, Traitor is he to God and to the grave, Poor as a miser with his load of pelf, And more unstable than a leeward wave.
From Love Letters of a Violinist and Other Poems by Mackay, Eric
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
