money changer

plural money changers · alternative money-changer · alternative moneychanger

1. A person who will exchange currency of one type for another for a fee or percentage.

   the money changers in the temple

   4 more examples

   Near-synonyms: bureau de change, currency exchange

   The money changer gave me rupees for my dollars.

   And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, […]

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 21:12

   From His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple complex. His mood turned from joy to anger as he watched the buyers and sellers inside the Temple. Matthew tells us in Matthew 21:12-13: And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. (KJV) Jesus became very indignant about the carelessness of the money changers in the Temple. In the Temple, there was special Temple money that was required. The money changers took advantage of that and took more Roman coins than they should have taken from the worshippers. They also sold Temple sacrifices of sheep and doves inside the Temple. Jesus drove them out and of course angered the priests and Levites because this was a profitable business for them. Jesus quoted from Isaiah 56:7 […] El Greco's picture is very expressive of driving the money changers from the Temple. The painting was completed somewhere between 1570 and 1575. This is one of several paintings of the same scene that El Greco painted.

   2006, Edward Buchanan, “Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple by El Greco”, in Parent/Teacher Handbook: Teaching Older Children Everything They Need to Know about Their Christian Heritage (Parent/Teacher Handbooks Series), volume 4, B&H Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 125

   Synonyms: bureau de change, currency exchange

2. A portable device for dispensing change.

   Women had replaced men on the streetcars as conductors and motormen, and the thought of sailing up and down the hills of San Francisco in a dark-blue uniform, with a money changer at my belt, caught my fancy.

   1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 34, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 224