pelf

American  

[pelf] / pɛlf /

noun

1. money or wealth, especially when regarded with contempt or acquired by reprehensible means.

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pelf British  

/ pɛlf /

noun

1. derogatory money or wealth, esp if dishonestly acquired; lucre

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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."

Example Sentences

And for her trouble somehow ends up with the whole weird Pelf family descending on her, maskless, prompting her to flee to her father’s house with Shep.

From Washington Post • May 4, 2022

After I got the double in Game 1, they all — Hojo, Pelf, all those guys, D-Wright — they were all texting me.

From New York Times • Oct. 15, 2010

The Altar and Throne Are in danger alone From such as himself, who would render The Altar itself But a step up to Pelf, And pray God to pay his defender.

From The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry by Coleridge, Ernest Hartley

A constant hunter after sordid Pelf; Was never just to any but himself: A very Proteus in all shapes had been, And constant onely, and grown old in sin.

From Anti-Achitophel (1682) Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden by Jones, Harold Whitmore

Proud is Pelf; But might not Legend lesson Labour's self?

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 105 September 23, 1893 by Various