Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) money.

1936		Dly News (NY) 21 Feb. 46/1: Mulah — Money.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 14 Feb. [synd. col.] She has a mint load of moo-lah.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 52: No matter how much moola I had I could not use some more.
1943		in W.C. Fields By Himself (1974) 249: I have plenty of mola – meaning spondulix.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 23: Naturally this kind of moolouw is protection on land or sea.
1949		Hal Ellson Duke 3: I’m low in dough, No moolah.
1951		M. Spillane Long Wait (1954) 122: The clusters of people hovering over the tables [...] reaching for more moola to keep in the game.
1954		Mad mag. Dec. 17: I want to be where the cash is ... the green stuff .... moolah .... pound notes .... get it ...? ...Money!
1960		I. Freeman Out of the Burning (1961) 125: Copping a plea, he got sprung with a suspended sentence. That took moola.
1963		C. Cooper Jr ‘Yet Princes Follow’ in Black! (1996) 204: He was kinda nice, and wasn’t tight on the moolah.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxvi 4/2: moolah: Money.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 172: ‘Yankee bean soup.’ That was Winantese for moola, coin, chips, loot, gold.
1971		N. Cassady First Third 67: Her trick just turned into fists instead of mulla.
1971		(con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 119: Five chips [i.e. rupees] is a lot of moolah.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 169: When you got the moolah these Hebes got, who gives a rat’s ass for a few chickenshit million a year?
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 38: They are certainly careful with the moola.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 25: Everyone needs moolah. If you haven’t got The Necessary they repo your wheels and turf you out of your fibro. So everyone needs a lurk.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 67: C.J. had demanded more moolah every step of the way.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] I’d have no chance of getting gear off him without any moolah.
1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] ‘Now you tell us who paid you the mullah’.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 87: She was spending Strutter’s moolah faster than he was earning it.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 123: Funny what a little moola can do.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 175: What are you going to do with the moolah?
2012		Chief Keef ‘Halleujah’ 🎵 Broke niggas we see right through ya / Bitch Chief Sosa getting that mula.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] ‘Money. My moolah. How much money we getting to find the kid?’.
2013		T. Black Ringer [ebook] n.p.: I'll be on a fast-train to Paris with a bagful of moolah.
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 67: ‘Money’ [...] might also be referred to as ‘cash’, or ‘coin’, or ‘oscar’, or ‘moolah’, or ‘notes’, or ‘bills’, or ‘chips’ or ‘brass’, or ‘dosh’, or ‘dough’, or ‘bread’, or ‘biscuits’, or ‘bullets’, or ‘ammunition’.
2014		Grizzy ‘Look Like You’ 🎵 Head in the bando we make mulla cake.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 500: ‘Not much moolah in being a historian... I’ve noticed that’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 619: ‘You got the moola I got the muscle’.