filthy lucre
Money, especially if obtained dishonestly.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“He cares only about filthy lucre.”
“She refuses to touch the filthy lucre earned from selling stolen goods.”
“Do you really want to keep that filthy lucre from the gambling ring?”
“The politician was accused of accepting bribes, clearly prioritizing filthy lucre over his public duties.”
“The whistleblower claimed the company ignored safety rules just to collect more filthy lucre from their illegal exports.”
“After the scam was discovered, the lawyer argued that his client never actually touched the filthy lucre himself.”
“The greedy landlord ignored the dangerous leaks in the ceiling because he was too busy counting the filthy lucre he took from his poorest tenants.”
“The novel explores how the protagonist sacrificed his integrity and reputation in a desperate, lifelong pursuit of filthy lucre.”
From filthy + lucre, which appears in the Tyndale Bible, and four times in the King James Version of the Bible, as a calque of Ancient Greek αἰσχρόν κέρδος (aiskhrón kérdos) and related terms such as αἰσχροκερδής (aiskhrokerdḗs, “[a person] given to filthy lucre”): see the quotations and Citations:filthy lucre.
Last updated August 10, 2026