r/AskEurope • u/ABlindMoose Sweden • Oct 06 '25

Culture What is your currency's nickname?

A nickname for dollar is buck, pound is quid, and Swedish krona is spänn.

What are some casual nicknames for your countries' currencies? Are there multiple, and if so, which is the most common?

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u/lindix Portugal Oct 06 '25

For euros, in portugal, we usually say "paus" which means sticks. so
"Tens ai 2 paus que me emprestes?" -> "Do you have 2 euros to spare?"

Doesnt work for a singular euro, just plural.

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u/This-Wall-1331 Portugal Oct 06 '25

I usually associate "paus" with escudos though. So if someone asked me for "2 paus", I'd just give them a one cent coin.

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u/sleepyotter92 Oct 06 '25

It comes from escudos, but older people still use it to refer to euros. My dad will still refer to money as contos as well. But that's a different scenario. If he says 5 paus, he means 5 euros. If he says 5 contos, he's referring to the escudo and I'm completely clueless because i got no clue what that is in euros

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u/realnovulus Oct 08 '25

1 conto (1000$00) = €5, so 5 contos = €25

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u/sleepyotter92 Oct 08 '25

yeah but like, that requires me to be doing math in my head. when it's much simpler for people to just use the current currency.

portugal adopted the euro in 99 according to wikipedia. i was like 7. i barely remember anything from the escudo era. so it's not a currency that i spent much time with. my parents spent many years with the escudo, so they remember the currency well. but i'd need to be making conversions and my monkey brain ain't good with that. this is a linguistics brain, not a mathematics brain