dirty money
noun
Simple meaning
Goods or money get illegally.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
durteemuhneeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɝtiməni
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Goods or money obtained illegally
idiomaticbusinesslaw
Money that is illegally gained, illegally transferred or illegally utilized, especially money gained through forgery, bribery, prostitution, money laundering, or theft.
informal
Extra money paid to workers as compensation for dirty or dangerous work.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Goods or money obtained illegally
Used this way, dirty money is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.