Green’s Dictionary of Slang

blunt n.1

[? Fr. blond, yellow, using as in other sl. terms the colour of the coin to denote its name; or f. SE blunt, referring to the edge of unmilled coins, or, least feasibly, from Mr John Blunt, chief architect of the South Sea Bubble financial scandal of 1720]

money, esp. cash in hand; thus blunty, wealthy; unblunted, impoverished.

Show quotations
[UK]Hell Upon Earth 5: Blunt, Money.
[UK]Hist. of the Press Yard in Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men (1719) xi: The cull looks as if he had the blunt, and I must come in for a share of it after my masters have done with him.
[UK]J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 5: It is a great Deal of Blunt.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions .
[UK] ‘Rolling Blossom’ in Festival of Anacreon in Wardroper Lovers, Rakers and Rogues (1995) 180: To Scamping Sam I gave my hand, / Who milled the blunt and tatlers.
[Ire] ‘Lord Altham’s Bull’ in Walsh Ireland Ninety Years Ago (1885) 87: So dere being no blunt in de cly, Madame Stevens was de word, where I lay for seventeen weeks in lavendar.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
[Aus]Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
[UK]‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 36: Where all your high pedestrian pads [...] Agree to share the blunt and tattlers!
[UK]‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 13: Un-blunted, implies that recent supplies have been all expended, or lost [...] a person of large estate, or in good trade, being said to ‘possess plenty of blunt.’ ‘Blunty all over’ has the same meaning.
[UK]Egan Recollections of J. Thurtell 34: Numbers were on the look out to have a slice of his blunt.
[UK]Bell’s Life in London 11 Sept. 8/1: Myriads of blunt commoners, pot-headed squires, and the rag-tag and bobtail ragamuffins.
[UK]Egan Anecdotes of the Turf, the Chase etc. 74: ‘Seven’s the main,’ Tom cried; ‘here’s the blunt, who’ll see it?’.
[Aus]Australian (Sydney) 11 July 4/2: Jack Kable swears he’ll ‘fight any thing alive’ for a purse of 500l.; and the Windsor ‘blades’ and his cousin ‘jarmins,’ are willing to post the ‘blunt’ instanter.
[Aus]Sydney Gaz. 10 May 3/3: If ‘hard up’ for ‘blunt,’ however, soma of them will go and sell the dogs in the streets as soon as possible after they have caught them.
[UK]Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 351: ‘It’s all very well,’ said Mr. Sikes; ‘but I must have some blunt from you tonight.’ ‘I haven’t a piece of coin about me,’ replied the Jew.
[Aus]Sydney Herald 26 Oct. 2/4: ‘To blow up,’ or ‘to give a person a blowing up,’ [...] is chiefly used by such people as call [...] halfpence, browns, shillings, bobs, money, tin or blunt, gentlemen, gents,.
[UK]New Sprees of London 4: ‘It’s true it may cost him blunt, but it is safe to save him some blunt if he works the dodge the right way, and [...] I intend our expedition shall be profitable as well as amusing’.
[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Sept. 4/2: Massa Sambo Sutton is welcome to the blunt.
[UK]New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 36: The fearless Don, who cares not for a row, and carries no more blunt than what he cares to lose.
[UK]G. Borrow Lavengro II 275: The fare is sixteen shillings. Come, tip us the blunt.
[Ind]Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Oct. 127/1: [of steln silver] ‘Got the blunt,’ said a deep voice from the deck, Jemima pointed to a large bundle [...] ‘Real silver?’ Asked the skipper from above.
[UK]C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend III 94: You put the blunt up.
[Aus]Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 4/1: ‘Proposals for a New Slang Dictionary’ [...] PEWTER.—Noun. Brads, rhino, blunt, dibbs, mopusses, browns, tin, brass, stumpy, &c. Hard pewter means ready rhino.
[UK]R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 291: I have left my blont, my tin, in my oder trousers pockets.
Golden Age (Queenbeyan, NSW) 28 Aug. 3/4: Simpkins [was] the ‘Corinthian Patron’ who found the ‘blunt’ for the country yokel Ding Dong Hammer, when the Slashington Pet challenged the pugilistic world.
[US]H.L. Williams Black-Eyed Beauty 97: Hullo! I say, Jem! vy strike me lame, here’s the pretty lady what give us the blunt tother day!
[US]J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 275: Where the hell does Joe Chapin get his blunt from? I never seed ’im doin’ nothin’ for it.
[UK]Punch LXXXII 147/2: ‘It appears, my dear Jerry,’ said the Corinthian, ‘that anybody can enter here who chooses to “sport his blunt” – that is, to pay.’.
[Scot]Dundee Eve. Teleg. 3 Apr. 2/5: We may talk of our money in a score of ways [...] ‘the actual,’ ‘the wherewithal,’ ‘beans,’ ‘blunt,’ [...] ‘shot,’ ‘feathers’.
[Aus]Truth (Sydney) 24 Feb. 3/5: The ‘drunk,’ hot-coppered, handed over all his silver blunt.
[UK]G.F. Northall Warwickshire Word-Book 31: Blunt. Money.
[UK]A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 12: The only person in the world from whom he had the least hope of getting the blunt that day [...] was at Newmarket.
[UK]E. Pugh City Of The World 260: Collaring more ’n half the blunt, and doing nothing for it.
[Aus]Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 7 June 9/6: Slang of Money [...] It has been called ‘the actual, the blunt, hard, dirt, evil, flimsy, gilt, iron, John. Davis, lurries, moss, oil of angels, pieces, rowdy, spondulicks, tin, wad’ .
[UK](con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 107: As they appeared to have lots of ‘blunt,’ the proprietor doubled the prices of admission.
[US](con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 13: Blunt – money.

In compounds

In phrases