money

money n Money, cash, currency, legal tender, specie, coin, coinage are comparable when they mean pieces of stamped metal or their equivalents issued by a government, or by an authority recognized by the government, to serve as a medium of exchange in the country or section under the control of that government.

Money applies to both coined gold, silver, copper, or other metal issued as a medium of exchange and to certificates or notes, often called specifically paper money, that sometimes promise payment in metal money, are issued by a government or governmentally recognized authority (as a bank), and pass like coined metal as a medium of exchange.

Cash applies to money, sometimes specifically called ready money, actually in hand or immediate possession of an individual or a business or institution

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the firm's supply of cash was very low because the larger part of the day's accumulation had just been deposited in the bank

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Currency may apply to all of the money in circulation, as distinguished from that which is not in circulation for one reason or another

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the first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency— Hemingway

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but it may also apply to paper money as distinguished from coined metal.

Legal tender applies specifically to the type of money which the law authorizes a debtor to offer and requires a creditor to receive as payment of money obligations and may or may not at any given time include all lawful money of a particular jurisdiction.

Specie, coin (only in a collective sense), and coinage apply only to minted or coined money; they therefore imply an opposition to all forms of paper money (as treasury notes and bank notes)

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payments were demanded in specie, or in the coin of the realm

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we are far more concerned today with his debasement of the coinage— Shaw

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