pin money

alternative pin-money

1. historicaluncountableAn allowance of money given by a man to his wife or to other dependents for their personal, discretionary use.First known use 16th c.

   Near-synonym: petty cash

   5 more examples

   Meronyms: pocket change, small change, loose change

   Damn you for a Son of a Bitch! Shall you wear such Things, and I want Pin-Money?

   1723, Charles Walker, Memoirs of Sally Salisbury, section VI

   Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin money, what jewels, what carriages you will have!

   1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XVII, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 301

   [H]e practised economy in the matter of his wife's pin-money.

   1886, George Gissing, chapter 27, in Demos: A Story of English Socialism

   But these sums were but a small part of their income, were merely pin money for their wives and children.

   1911, David Graham Phillips, chapter 7, in The Conflict

   Synonyms: pocket money, spending money, walk-around money, walking-around money, beer money, petty cash

2. datedidiomaticuncountableA relatively small sum of cash kept in one's personal possession for routine expenses or incidental purchases; an amount of money which is not particularly significant.First known use 18th c.

   Near-synonym: petty cash

   4 more examples

   Meronyms: pocket change, small change, loose change

   "Money—yes; pin money: a couple of hundred thousand, perhaps. Not more." Washington's eyes blazed. "A couple of hundred thousand dollars! do you call that pin money?"

   1892, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter III, in The American Claimant, New York, N.Y.: Charles L[uther] Webster & Co., →OCLC, page 43

   "When did you leave Oklahoma? Where is Reddy McGill now? Why are you selling those impossible contraptions on the street?["] […] "A year ago," answered Kansas Bill systematically. "Putting up windmills in Arizona. For pin money to buy etceteras with.["]

   1906 August, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “A Ruler of Men”, in H[arry] P[eyton] S[teger], editor, Rolling Stones, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company for Review of Reviews Co., published 1915, →OCLC, page 9

   Andrew pays all the farm expenses, but the housekeeping accounts fall to me. I make a fairish amount of pin money on my poultry and some of my preserves that I send to Boston, […]

   1917, Christopher Morley, chapter 3, in Parnassus on Wheels, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, →OCLC, page 26

   Synonyms: pocket money, spending money, walk-around money, walking-around money, beer money, petty cash