So I was talking to my daughter on the drive to school, educating her on the finer points of life for an eight year old. A quarter, I told her, is two bits. A fin, I said, is five bucks. And a sawbuck is.. Well, what is a sawbuck? I honestly couldn’t remember. So as I soon as I got in the office, I looked it up. Here’s the answer:

If you’ve never heard the term “sawbuck,” it’s probably simply due to the inexorable march of time, since the term was once widely known in the US. In the literal sense, a “sawbuck” is the contraption better known as a “sawhorse” — a brace or frame, originally in an “X” shape with crossed legs, used to hold long pieces of wood while they are being sawed. The word “sawbuck” derives from the Dutch name for the frame, “zaag-bok,” and first appeared in English in the 19th century.

Also back in the 19th century, US paper currency was marked with Roman numerals denoting its value — “C” for one hundred dollars, “V” for five dollars, etc. The Roman numeral for ten was, of course, “X,” which to many people brought to mind the sawbuck, so a “sawbuck” became slang for a ten-dollar bill. Apparently several other denominations also spawned slang terms, but “C-note” for a one-hundred dollar bill is the only one still in common use.

Incidentally, while “buck” as slang for “one dollar” is often traced to the use of buckskins (deer pelts) as a medium of exchange in early America, that theory has never been verified and “buck” in the “dollar” sense has not been found before the mid-19th century. One wonders whether “buck” might not have been derived from “sawbuck” by the logic of “A sawbuck is ten dollars, so one dollar must be just ‘a buck’.” Hey, it’s not impossible.

However, the “buck” in Harry Truman’s famous motto “The buck stops here” (meaning “I accept the responsibility”) has nothing to do with money. In 19th century poker games, the dealer of the current hand was designated by an object called a “buck” (supposedly originally a knife with a buckhorn handle) placed on the table. When the next player’s turn to deal came, the “buck” was “passed,” a phrase which came to mean “transfer (or evade) responsibility” by the early 20th century.

Source: Word Detective

Next up: Moolah, lettuce, wampum, and simoleons.

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