Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a £5 note, £5, a €5 euro note.

1846		Era (London) 15 Mar. 12/1: There would be a spin between ‘Stunning Joe Banks’ and his brother ‘bung,’ the host of the Running Horse, for a ‘fiver’ and a ‘spread’.
1853		G.J. Whyte-Melville Digby Grand 29: Spooner loses a five-pound note, or, as he calls it, a fiver, to my antagonist.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 365: A ten-pound note costs me two pounds, and a fiver, one sovereign.
1867		‘Under the Earth’ in Dick’s Standard Plays (1871) II i: I say, Loo; you can’t lend me a fiver, can you?
1878		J. Hatton Cruel London I 214: Can you lend me a fiver?
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Mar. 6/2: Surely nothing less than a fiver and costs could atone for the luxury of calling a Judge a fool and a member of Parliament an ass.
1890		Sporting Times 1 Mar. 1/4: Only last week you told me of his lending you a fiver.
1899		H. Lawson ‘The Songs They Used to Sing’ in Roderick (1972) 385: You don’t remember the fiver, Sam Holt, / You borrowed so careless and free?
1900		Punch 21 Mar. 204: I suppose you have quite forgotten, Mr. Jones, that you owe me a fiver?
1902		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 16 Nov. 5/5: ‘Ef you lays er fiver, er tenner, or er monkey [...] , yous er toff, er patron o’ ther Turf’.
1914		‘Bartimeus’ ‘“Noel”’ in Naval Occasions 27: It’s years since I touched a fiver.
1915		Drew & Evans Grafter (1922) 4: ‘Stop him. I’ll give a fiver to the hospital if they yard him’.
1924		‘Sapper’ Third Round 522: He had bet this Professor a fiver that he’d do it.
1929		K.S. Prichard Coonardoo 312: Give me the fiver.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 13: You could get those guys to do anything in the world for a fiver apiece.
1946		S. Jackson An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 52: The composer usually gets a fiver advance on royalties.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 162: I’ll bet you a fiver [...] that you wouldn’t eat this tin of stew.
1956		R.T. Hopkins Banker Tells All 40: Place one ‘fiver’ a month; no more and no less.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 71: ‘Fiver,’ says the fake kraut. ‘Good show. Good women.’.
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 58: [H]e wanted to bet not in fivers but in thousands.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 214: Borrowing a fiver when my kids want shoes.
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 110: He still owes me another fiver.
1992		D. Jarman diary 13 Aug. Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 192: I opened thousands of letters with donations, sometimes a tatty parcel would be full of old white fivers.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xx: The Flea nodded and forked out a fiver.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 263: Through a rolled-up fiver he snorts one line up his right nostril and the other up his left.
2006		in D. Seabrook Jack of Jumps (2007) 212: If they wanted to spend a fiver she would take them to the sports ground.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 74: The money poured in: loose change, folded fivers and ten-spots.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 102: She bent over the Bible with a rolled-up fiver and snorted her line.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 112: A fiver off a cut, another fiver off a colour.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 12: Dan y [...] pulls a fiver oot his new Berghaus jakit.

2. (US) a $5 bill.

1843		Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 7 Jan. 536/2: If any man heard more than a double X bet, he was in a livelier crowd than we met with. But in ‘fivers’ something was done.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 370: Feeling kindly disposed to ‘jine,’ he handed over to the dealer a Kentucky fiver, and received checks for it.
1887		World (N.Y.) 7 Apr. 6/5: That led Sam Derickson to get ‘hot under the collar,’ and he wagered a ‘fiver’ that Columbia would secure a run in the next Inning.
1896		Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 11 June 2/3: I’ll just rake off three of the fivers for velvet.
1901		J. London ‘Local Color’ Complete Short Stories (1993) I 694: I had intended to slip a fiver into his hand.
1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I iv: We printed one fiver off that plate—and then we knew enough to quit.
1919		Wodehouse ‘Leave It to Jeeves’ in My Man Jeeves [ebook] ‘Lend me a fiver, Bertie. I want to take a taxi down to Park Row!’.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 379: I’ll run up and fetch my kit. Wont take a sec . . . . Here’s a fiver.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 280: He needed that fiver too badly.
1955		B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] A fiver took care of the cop in the street, a tenner satisfied the sergeant, a captain had to have a weekly C-note and a fed had to be inhuman to resist a cool grand.
1965		A. James America’s Homosexual Underground 38: I took a taxi back home – my fiver was still intact.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 191: She would do anything for a fiver — fuck regular, ass-fuck, titty-fuck, lick your asshole.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 38: He deftly snapped up the fiver.
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 36: He never saved up the fiver because he had this terrible hunger that wouldn’t let him rest, and every dollar he managed to get his hands on went for eats.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 13: The ten-spot is rhythm, the fiver is hope, the deuce is freedom.

3. (Aus./UK/US) a five-year prison sentence; one serving such.

1896		Sessions Papers 9 Sept.
1897		‘Price Warung’ Tales of the Old Regime 219: He was a ‘fiver’.
1907		Truth (Perth) 19 Oct. 4/6: The ‘sentence’ for Johnnies who window-panes smash / Is mild magisterial ‘guiver,’ / But a white man resenting a nigger is rash. / And is sure to be ‘sent’ for a fiver.
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 22: So here I am for another ‘fiver’ at the Old Bailey.

4. (US drugs) a quantity of heroin costing $5.

1978

J. Carroll Basketball Diaries 25: I did half a fiver, and shit, what a rush.