Word.ws English Dictionary

coffee money

/ˈkɔfi ˌmʌni/

coffee money noun: loose change.

Noun

coffee money (uncountable)

  1. (slang) Loose change.
  2. (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, idiomatic) A small amount of money given as a bribe or gratuity.
    • Singapore is free of corruption as any place on earth. (Even small-scale bribery attempts lead to immediate arrest.) Ironically, this has surfaced as a disadvantage for Singaporeans conducting business in other countries - where contacts aren’t always considered binding, bureaucratic inefficiency...1998, Alexandra Kett, Passport Singapore: Your Pocket Guide to Singaporean Business, Customs & Etiquette, page 31
    • Obviously he was trying to wear out your patience in the hope that you will hand over some undercounter coffee money to him instead of paying for the official tax/fine which does not benefit him at all.2008 March 31, Alan Wong, “The Stupid Things I Did At The Malaysian Custom”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

coffee money meaning in Bengali, Malay and Vietnamese

coffee money in Bengali

খুচরা টাকা

coffee money in Malay

euphemism for small bribe
duit kopi

coffee money in Vietnamese

euphemism for small bribe
tiền cà phê

Forms of coffee money

alternative formkopi money

Origin of coffee money

A euphemism that refers to the amount of money typically enough to buy a cup of coffee. The bribe or gratuity fee sense is a calque of Malay duit kopi.

Questions about coffee money

What does coffee money mean?
Coffee money means loose change.
What is coffee money in Bengali?
Coffee money in Bengali is খুচরা টাকা. See Coffee money meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is coffee money?
Coffee money is a noun.
How do you pronounce coffee money?
Coffee money is pronounced /ˈkɔfi ˌmʌni/.

Words near coffee money in the dictionary

  1. coffee milk
  2. coffee milks
  3. coffee mill
  4. coffee mills
  5. coffee moffie
  6. coffee money
  7. coffee morning
  8. coffee mornings
  9. coffee palace
  10. coffee palaces
  11. coffee pause

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coffee money (page history and authors); coffee money (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “coffee money.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coffee_money. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.