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Australian slang for decimal banknotes has never really caught on, although there seems to be a few locally used expressions here and there, none of them have become a part of our colloquial speech. We seem to have been happy to merely borrow the US term, "Buck" to refer to any Dollar amount.

Pre-decimal currency was a bit more colourful, some of the more memorable terms being -

Ten Shillings - Ten Bob, Half a Quid, Half a Fiddly, Teddy.

One Pound - Quid, Fiddly (which is a play on words derived from Quid).

Five Pounds - Fiver, Spin or Deep Sea Diver (rhyming slang).

Ten Pounds - Tenner or Brick (because it was red).

Quid also applied to any multiple of Pounds.

There were a range of other short lived names as a result of whoever happened to be Prime Minister at the time, or whoever had their signature on the notes, perhaps due to a strange name or some physical characteristic worthy of making fun of.

You occasionally still hear the rhyming slang "Oxford Scholar" referring to a Dollar, but usually only in the company of the elderly.

The following is a list of possibly regional terms for Australian decimal banknotes, I have never heard most of them used in Australian colloquial speech (Strine).

$1 (brown) - Brown Bomber, Queenie and Bung Buck.

$2 (green) - Sick Sheep (referring to the colour and the sheep) or Greenback (borrowed from the US).

$5 (purple) - Fiver, Sky Diver (rhyming slang), Pink Lady, Prawn, Piglet and Rasher (of bacon).

$10 (blue) - Tenner, Blue Swimmer, Blue Heeler or Banjo (referring to Banjo Paterson).

$20 (red) - Red Lobster or Lobster, Redback or Rusky (all due to the red colour).

$50 (yellow) - Pineapple, Yellow Peril and Banana (all due to the yellow colour).

$100 (grey paper) - Grey Nurse (shark), Ghost or Bradman (a very obscure reference to Bradman's batting average).

$100 (green polymer) - Jolly Green Giant, Green Soldier (referring to General Monash), Avocado, Watermelon, Tree Frog or Peppermint.

WARNING - If you propose to incorporate any of these terms into your regular vocabulary, please be advised that some of them are politically incorrect, derisive or racist.

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Q: What is the slang for all Australian banknotes?
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