simoleon
See also: Simoleon
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Most likely a late-19th-century blend of simon, from simon (“sixpence coin”) (17th-century British slang, perhaps related to simony?), and Napoleon (“French gold coin worth 20 francs, bearing the image of Napoleon III”). Perhaps from New Orleans.
Noun
[edit]simoleon (plural simoleons)
- (US, slang) A dollar.
- That'll cost you five simoleons.
- 1903 February, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Hygeia at the Solito”, in Everybody’s Magazine, volume VIII, number 2, New York, N.Y.: John Wanamaker, →ISSN, page 174, column 2:
- "T'ought I was lyin' about the money, did ye? Well, you can frisk me if you wanter. Dat's the last simoleon in the treasury. Who's goin' to pay?"
- 1909, The International Bookbinder - Volume 10, page 240:
- Another brother working in an Alabama city has not sent a cold simolean or any long green since January; he has ignored several letters, but at last a registered letter found him O.K. and working.
- 1912, Delta Chi Quarterly, volume 10, page 286:
- We gladly did so with the result that we got a menu worth a dollar and a half or two dollars for a single simolean. Can you beat that?
- 1962, Thomas Berger, Reinhart in Love:
- His Veteran's insurance came to ten thousand simoleons, rather more than he could bring on the hoof.
- 1983, Newsweek, volume 101, page 178:
- Abetted by market-wise agents and paperback publishers with an eye for the speedy simolean, these double-gaited gonzos are perpetrating a plague of best-selling takeoffs of innocent newspapers, defenseless magazines, helpless self-help books - even the Good Book itself.