paper money
UK/ˌpeɪpə ˈmʌni//ˌpeɪpəɹ ˈmʌni/
paper money noun: cash in the form of banknotes.
Noun (1)
paper money (uncountable)
- Cash in the form of banknotes.
- Synonyms:
- folding money, paper currency
- Antonyms:
- commodity money
Noun (2)
paper money (uncountable)
- A type of joss paper resembling banknotes burnt to venerate the deceased, ancestor spirits, deities, etc.
- Moreover, you say that serving Fuh is a profitable service; that if you burn paper money, present offerings, and keep fasts before the face of your god Fuh, he will dissipate calamities, blot out your sins, increase your happiness, and prolong your age!1848, Samuel Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants, page 558
- Tablets in honour of the dead are set up in every house over a sort of family altar; and at certain times flowers are offered and paper-money is burned at these shrines.1873, William Curry, Jun., & Company, The Dublin University Magazine, volume 81, page 393
- Synonyms:
- hell money
paper money meaning in Tagalog, Indonesian and Vietnamese
paper money in Tagalog
- cash in the form of banknotes
- salaping papel
paper money in Indonesian
- cash in the form of banknotes
- uang kertas
paper money in Vietnamese
- cash in the form of banknotes
- tiền giấy
Examples of paper money in a sentence
- Tsze Chien means “paper money” – not the real bank notes which are so extensively used in China as money but the make-believe tinsel money which the Chinese burn as part of their religious worship.1893, Henry Addison Nelson, Albert B. Robinson, The Church at Home and Abroad, page 108:
- People had also begun to burn paper money (it was believed that burning transformed it into real money that could be used by the departed souls in hades) instead of placing actual coins in the tombs.1931, United States National Museum, Proceedings of the United States National Museum, volume 80, page 75:
- “Let’s burn the paper money,” Mai Mai said.1967, C. Y. Lee, The land of the golden mountain, page 175:
- The paper money for the spirits consisted of imitations either of metal coins or of real money, but the latter had different sets of inscriptions and patterns to distinguish it from counterfeit money.1985, Joseph Needham, Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin, Science and Civilisation in China, page 102:
Synonyms of paper money
Antonyms
Forms of paper money
| alternative form | paper-money |
|---|
Origin of paper money
From paper + money.
Calque from Chinese 紙錢／纸钱 (zhǐqián).
Questions about paper money
- What does paper money mean?
- Paper money means cash in the form of banknotes.
- What is paper money in Tagalog?
- Paper money in Tagalog is salaping papel. See Paper money meaning in Tagalog.
- How do you use paper money in a sentence?
- Tsze Chien means “paper money” – not the real bank notes which are so extensively used in China as money but the make-believe tinsel money which the Chinese burn as part of their religious worship.
- What part of speech is paper money?
- Paper money is a noun.
- How do you pronounce paper money?
- Paper money is pronounced /ˌpeɪpə ˈmʌni/ (UK).
Words near paper money in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: paper money (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: “paper money.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paper_money. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.