legal tender

noun

: money that is legally valid for the payment of debts and that must be accepted for that purpose when offered

Synonyms

• bread [slang]
• bucks
• cabbage [slang]
• cash
• change
• chips
• coin
• currency
• dough
• gold
• green
• jack [slang]
• kale [slang]
• lolly [British]
• long green [slang]
• loot
• lucre
• money
• moola [slang]
• moolah
• needful
• pelf
• scratch [slang]
• shekels
• sheqels
• shekelim
• shekalim
• sheqalim
• tender
• wampum

Examples of legal tender in a Sentence

Soon after France adopted the euro, the French franc ceased to be legal tender.

coins and bills are considered legal tender, but postage stamps are not

Recent Examples on the Web

Paper Money Rebellion The Currency Act of 1764 returned the restrictions of 1751: banning colonists from printing their own legal tender bills. —JSTOR Daily, 24 June 2024

Volcanoes to power bitcoin mining in El Salvador The first nation to make bitcoin legal tender will use geothermal energy to mine it. —Big Think, 24 June 2024

Her attention to such matters of legal tender, from the unpaid debts of the Reverend Amos Barton to the financial fraud of Nicholas Bulstrode in Middlemarch, accounts for no small portion of the richness of her novels. —Emily Harnett, Harper's Magazine, 26 Apr. 2024

In 2021, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender alongside the US dollar. —Michael Rios, CNN, 7 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1730, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

legal tender

noun

: money that the law authorizes for paying debts

Legal Definition

legal tender

noun

: money that is legally valid for the payment of debts and that must be accepted for that purpose when offered