Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pelf n.

money.

1508		Dunbar ‘To the King’ in Laing Poems (1834) I 159: Bot, Lord! how petewouslie I luike, Quhen all the pelf thay pairt amange thame.
1540		D. Lyndsay Satyre of Thrie Estaits II ii: Latt us now part this pelf amang us.
1573		T. Tusser Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1878) 208: There was I faine my selfe to traine [...] For hope of pelfe, like wordly else, to moile and toile.
1584		Three Ladies of London I: For Lucar men come from Italy, Barbary [...] nay the Pagan himselfe, Indaungers his bodie to gape for her pelfe.
1597–8		Jonson Case Is Altered II i: O, wondrous pelf That which makes all men false, is true itself.
1606		Wily Beguiled 54: He so dotes on Peter Ploddalls pelfe.
1620		T. May Heir II i: A man that never lov’d / For anything call’d good, but dross and pelf.
1641		T. Heywood Vertue of Sack 2: If all that Pelfe / Were mine owne, I have thought a way / Already how to spend it.
1659		Catterpillers of this Nation Anatomized 2: The flattering Sycophant, for a little pelfe, may be hired to write Panagiricks.
1667		‘Ballad’ in Wilson Court Satires of the Restoration (1976) 11: Old fatguts himself, / With his tripes and his pelf, / With a purse as full as his paunch.
1672		‘The Petticoat Wagge, The Answer’ in Ebsworth Westminster Drolleries (1875) II 14: Some say the world is full of pelfe; But I think There’s no Chinke.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 10: Or what avails his godly Pelf. / When I am like to hang my self?
1699		‘Song’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy I 282: I begg’d for my Master, / And got him store of pelf.
1709		‘Phoebe Crackenthorpe’ Female Tatler (1992) (28) 66: She had a gentlewoman’s fortune, two thousand pounds, but lovers blush’d at people’s naming worldly pelf to ’em.
1714		J. Gay Shepherd’s Week 5th Pastoral 48: There secretly I’ve hid my worldly Pelf.
1725		View of London & Westminster (2nd part) 17: He is past Eighty, and must soon must abandon his life, which is his Pelf; but it rends his Heart.
1730		J. Miller Humours of Oxford I i: You should generously make it a Blessing to the World; and not (as a Miser does his Pelf) niggardly hoard it.
1742		N. Hooke Sarah-Ad 28: To cheat and rob her of her Pelf.
1759		J. Townley High Life Below Stairs II i: The wrinkled lean Miser bows down to his Pelf.
1767		J. O’Keeffe The She-Gallant 20: You’re rightly serv’d, for preferring the love of your pelf, to the [...] happiness of your child.
1772		G. Stevens ‘Self’ Songs Comic and Satyrical 224: Says I to my Tutor, Sir, what shall I do, / Shall I think to accumulate pelf?
1788		W. Nimrod Songs of the Chace 55: The miser, who doats on his ill-gotten pelf.
1792		C. Dibdin ‘The Jolly Fustian-Cutter’ Buck’s Delight 7: The stake he secures ’tis but ill-gotten pelf.
1804		Sporting Mag. Sept. XXIV 284/2: I denied you a friend to ride by, I confess [...] not for the sake of the pelf.
1812		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Picturesque (1868) 70/2: I’ll quit these sons of pelf.
1826		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 317: What crushings, bawlings for the pelf.
1834		‘The Rake’s Register’ Bang-Up Songster 23: I married her and got her pelf, / With which I soon was flashing.
1841		‘The Old Woman & Her Cats’ Dublin Comic Songster 314: And in a sly pocket was plenty of pelf.
1843		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 21 Jan. n.p.: The chap who penned it must be a genius, and will [...] gain fame and pelf.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Mar. 3/2: Ryan’s thoughts being on pelf intent.
1846		Censor (London) 4 Jan. 5/1: But John, at length discerning, / The rogues were fond of pelf.
1851		‘My Daddy Warn’t Particular’ Jolly Comic Songster 200: With these I’d make a shift to live, nor think of care or pelf.
1857		Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 11 Apr. 4/4: [I]n the struggle for honour and pelf the Southrons were victorious.
1865		‘Not Such a Fool’ Bob Smith’s Clown Song and Joke Bk 59: And now that I’m single again, / And what’s more, got plenty of pelf.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 144: ‘I scorn a fellow who’d wed for pelf’.
1877		‘Mister Simpkins’ Laughing Songster 117: I cannot take your pelf.
1883		E.J. Milliken Childe Chappie’s Pilgrimage 43: Dangerous roads / O’er which at pleasure or at pelf to aim / For aught but cunning minds.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 20 July 3/3: Why should any windy elf / Try to make them part to bookies when they want to play their pelf?
1894		Truth (Sydney) 11 Feb. 7/2: Shedding blood is bad enough, boss, when one does it for the pelf.
1894		G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen I 137: My fingers instinctively closed on the sum of seven shillings and sixpence [and] I clutched my pelf.
1904		Harington & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Naughty, naughty, naughty 🎵 Once a penniless man, after dear auntie ran / He was after her nice bit of pelf .
1906		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Sept. 16/1: Thoughts of snatching pelf he spurned. / At suggestions to ‘go crook’ / Righteous wrath within him burned.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Novelist’s Derby’ Sporting Times 30 May 1/3: They were three-year-olds, most of the runners, and some of ’em were worth ’eaps o’ pelf.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 June 2nd sect. 12/8: We have seen him stoush his mother and appropriate her pelf, / And dint his sister's noddle with the hard, domestic delf.
1912		C. McKay ‘Bumming’ Constab Ballads 35: Don’t cringe an’ fawn ’fore richer men, / Deir pelf’s not wort’ a tittle.
1916		R. Service ‘The Ballad of Soulful Sam’ Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 109: Cards! They’ve been me ruin. They’ve taken me pride and me pelf.
1920–23		in J.M. Hunter Trail Drivers of Texas (1963) I 125: He loaned a friend a little pelf.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Coffin for a Coward’ in Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 Somebody had spent a terrific pile of pelf on the furnishings.
1947		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 731: He didn’t do this for money, / He didn’t do it for pelf.
1951		R. Service ‘Rosenstein’ Lyrics of a Low Brow 86: There’s money in Romance they say, / But my romance is piling pelf.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 7: ‘Twenty Oxford Scholars is a lot of cabbage for one fluffy duck,’ he said as he mentally calculated how may pig’s ears he could buy with that amount of pelf.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 315: I am pocketing my $300 in bookie pelf.
2005		E. Weiner Big Boat to Bye-Bye 184: ‘Cough up the pelf and we’ll mark it closed’.