Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. N.Z.) money.

[1801		Z. Nakhshabī Ṭūṭī nāmah 127: Once on a time a man gave some feloose* to his wife, who went to a grocer’s shop in the market to buy sugar [...] *Pieces of copper coin].
1917		Chronicle NZEF 5 Sept. 32: W.M.R. consoled themselves by securing the largest amount of ‘filoose’ through their win [DNZE].
1942		NZEF Times 27 Oct. 6: Johnny Enzed says [...] ‘Mafeesh Falouse’. [Ibid.] 7 Dec. 6: Just telling them about things [...] Explaining the shortness of faloose and all that [DNZE].
1944		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 Oct. 13: I come now to a word which is among the first [...] that foreigners in Egypt learn – I mean fils, which is the Arabic word for money [DNZE].
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 307: I’ve got a bit of feloos stowed away with noone to spend it on except myself.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 160: ‘Yeah, dough — feloose, mazuma!’ The derelict held out his dirty hand, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.
1963		(con. WWII) R.P. Serle Second 24th Aus. Infantry Battalion 153: A challenge return pull [of tug o’ war] in the afternoon gave us victory and a return, with interest, of all the ‘feloose’ lost on the morning pull.
1971		(con. WWII) Crimp & Bowlby Diary of a Desert Rat 197: Feloose – money.
2015		410 ‘Civilians’ 🎵 Just came back from cunch / Tryna get all this filoose / Man ah got a big 44 / Like nobody nobody move / Man ah tek weh all the filoose / And a couple boxes of food.