MONEY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

MONEYAuthored

The Law Mind • 1225 words

Definition

Money is a general and comprehensive term for the recognized medium of exchange in a given society — the common standard by which value is measured and through which debts are paid and property transferred. In legal usage, the term carries two distinct registers:

1. Specific sense: Coined metal — historically gold, silver, or copper — bearing a government stamp and issued as legal currency. In its narrowest constitutional meaning, money refers to coin minted under sovereign authority.

2. General sense: Any medium recognized by common consent as a representative of value in commercial exchange, including coin, bank notes, and other currency. Under this broader usage, money encompasses whatever circulates as the standard medium of exchange in a functioning economy, regardless of physical form.

The distinction matters because legal instruments — contracts, wills, judgments, statutes — may use "money" in either sense, and courts have occasionally had to determine whether a given use imports the narrow (specie) or broad (any currency) meaning.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A generally accepted means of exchange; hard cash in the form of banknotes and coins as opposed to checks or credit; the total value of liquid assets available to an individual; wealth generally.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A piece of metal — gold, silver, copper — coined or stamped and issued by sovereign authority as a medium of exchange in financial transactions between citizens and with government.

The gap between common and legal usage is narrower here than with many legal terms, but it is not trivial. In ordinary speech, "money" freely extends to bank balances, digital payments, and wealth in general. In legal instruments — particularly older ones — courts have sometimes applied the specific sense of coined metal or lawful currency only, rejecting broader substitutes. A plaintiff who pleaded for "money" in equity or sought recovery of "money had and received" at common law invoked specific doctrinal frameworks that the casual modern meaning obscures.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Purchase money: Consideration paid, or credited as paid, for the acquisition of specific property. The concept underlies purchase money mortgages and purchase money security interests, each of which carries distinct priority rules in property and commercial law.

Money had and received: A common law action in quasi-contract (now subsumed under unjust enrichment doctrine) for the recovery of money the defendant holds that in equity and good conscience belongs to the plaintiff.

Public money: Funds belonging to or held in trust by a governmental body. Misappropriation of public money triggers distinct statutory offenses separate from ordinary theft.

Money damages: The standard remedy at common law — a court's award expressed as a sum of currency — as distinguished from equitable remedies such as injunction or specific performance.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encounter three recurring problems with this term in historical sources.

First, the specific/general ambiguity is live in older cases and treatises. When a nineteenth-century court interprets a will, contract, or statute using the word "money," its holding may turn on which sense was intended. The constitutional provision granting Congress power to coin money and the prohibition on states' emitting bills of credit both implicate the narrow meaning of specie, and antebellum cases debating paper currency are unintelligible without that backdrop.

Second, two entirely distinct historical legal concepts share names that overlap with "money" — neither of which means money in the modern sense. Chimney money (also called hearth money) was an English tax on hearths. In copyhold tenure, a recognition payment to a lord was sometimes called "money" in regional usage. Both appear in the historical dictionary sources and will surface in corpus searches. A researcher pulling results on "money" from English legal texts predating 1700 should be alert to these usages.

Third, the modern regulatory and criminal law landscape has layered substantial doctrine onto the term. Money laundering statutes under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956–1957 and the Bank Secrecy Act's anti-money laundering framework use "money" and "monetary instruments" as defined terms that diverge from both the common law and constitutional senses. Research that crosses the common law / regulatory divide must track which definition controls.

Historical Dictionary Support

The major historical dictionaries broadly agree on the general definition — money as the common medium of exchange — while diverging on emphasis and on constitutional implications.

Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) captures the dual usage cleanly, defining money as both a specific and a general term and acknowledging that coin and bank notes both qualify under the broad reading. The formulation from Hopson v. Fountain — that money "embraces every description of coin or bank-notes recognized by common consent as a representative of value" — appears verbatim in the second edition and represents the dominant American common law position.

Bouvier's Law Dictionary pushes toward the narrower, constitutionally informed view: gold and silver coins as the "common medium of exchange," with a note that the U.S. Constitution's usage has been read to make money synonymous with coin. This reflects the antebellum debate over whether paper currency was constitutionally sanctioned "money" — a live controversy before the Legal Tender Cases resolved it.

Anderson's Dictionary of Law takes the most abstract approach, defining money as a "universal medium" and "sign which represents the respective values of all merchandise" — language tracking the political economy tradition more than legal doctrine.

Rapalje & Lawrence includes a fragmentary note that money is "the just medium and measure" — consistent with the others but offering little additional doctrinal content.

Bouvier also includes entries on foreign monetary units (the French franc) and on copyhold recognition payments called "money" — a reminder that corpus searches on this term will capture material well outside modern monetary law.

What the historical dictionaries largely miss: the regulatory and criminal law dimensions of money that dominate contemporary legal practice, and any treatment of monetary instruments as defined in modern statutes. Researchers working post-1970 must look beyond these sources.

Jurisdictional Note

The constitutional dimension of money is federal: Congress holds the exclusive power to coin money and regulate its value, and states are prohibited from making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. State law, however, governs most transactional disputes about money — contracts, debts, damages — and state courts have not always applied a uniform definition. Researchers working with state commercial law should note that UCC Article 1 provides a statutory definition of "money" as a medium of exchange currently authorized or adopted by a domestic or foreign government.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Money Laundering (18 USC 1956-1957) — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia
Banking — Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) — The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia
Mortgages — Purchase Money Mortgages and PMSIs in Real Property — The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia

MONEYmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

A tax upon chimneys or hearths; an ancient tax or duty upon houses in Eng- land, now repealed.

MONEYmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

A general, indefinite term for the measure and representative of value; currency; the circulating medium; cash. "Money" is a generic term, and embraces every description of coin or bank-notes rec- ognized by common consent as a representa- tive of value in effecting exchanges of prop- erty or payment of debts. 5 Humph. 140. Money is used in a specific and also in a general and more comprehensive sense. In its specific sense, it means what is coined or stamped by pub- lic authority, and has its determinate value fixed by governments. In its more comprehensive and general sense, it means wealth, -the representative of commodities of all kinds, of lands, and of every- thing that can be transferred in commerce. Tex. 10. In its strict technical sense, "money" means coined metal, usually gold or silver, upon which the government stamp has been impressed to indi- cate its value. In its more popular sense, "money" means any currency, tokens, bank-notes, or other circulating medium in general use as the repre- sentative of value. 45 Tex. 305. The term "moneys" is not of more extensive sig- nification then "money, " and means only cash, and not things in action. 14 Johns. 1; 1 Johns. Ch. 231.

MONEYmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

In English Law. A sum paid by tenants of copyhold in some parts of England, as a recognition of their superior lords. Cowel: Blount. Called a fine by Blackstone; 2 Sharsw. Bla. Com. 98.

MONEYn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A piece of metal, as gold, silver, copper, etc., coined, or stamped, and issued by the sovereign authority as a medium of exchange in financial transactions between citizens and with government; also, any number of such pieces; coin. To prevent such abuses, ... it has been found necessary ... to affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of such particular metals, as were in those countries commonly made use of to purchase goods. Hence the origin of coined money, and of those public offices called mints. A. Smith. Any written or stamped promise, certificate, or order, as a government note, a bank note, a certificate of deposit, etc., which is payable in standard coined money and is lawfully current in lieu of it; in a comprehensive sense, any currency usually and lawfully employed in buying and selling. In general, wealth; property; as, he has much money in land, or in stocks; to make, or lose, money. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. 1 Tim vi. 10 (Rev. Ver. ). Money bill (Legislation), a bill for raising revenue.  -- Money broker, a broker who deals in different kinds of money; one who buys and sells bills of exchange; -- called also money changer.  -- Money cowrie (Zoöl.), any one of several species of Cypræa (esp. C. moneta) formerly much used as money by savage tribes. See Cowrie.  -- Money of account, a denomination of value used in keeping accounts, for which there may, or may not, be an equivalent coin; e.g., the mill is a money of account in the United States, but not a coin.  -- Money order, an order for the payment of money; specifically, a government order for the payment of money, issued at one post office as payable at another; -- called also postal money order.  -- Money scrivener, a person who produces the loan of money to others. [Eng.] -- Money spider, Money spinner (Zoöl.), a small spider; -- so called as being popularly supposed to indicate that the person upon whom it crawls will be fortunate in money matters.  -- Money's worth, a fair or full equivalent for the money which is paid.  -- A piece of money, a single coin.  -- Ready money, money held ready for payment, or actually paid, at the time of a transaction; cash.  -- To make money, to gain or acquire money or property; to make a profit in dealings.

MONEYv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To supply with money. [Obs.]

moneynoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A generally accepted means of exchange. | A currency maintained by a state or other entity which can guarantee its value (such as a monetary union). | Hard cash in the form of banknotes and coins, as opposed to checks, credit cards, or credit more generally. | The total value of liquid assets available for an individual or other economic unit, such as cash and bank deposits. | Wealth. | A person, family or class that possesses wealth. | An item of value between two or more parties used for the exchange of goods or services. | A person who funds an operation.

Moneyname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A surname. | An unincorporated community in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. | An unincorporated community in Gloucester County, Virginia, United States.

moneyadj

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Cool; excellent.

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