Learn English – Why is 1000$ called a ‘grand’

british-englishetymology

Recently I have noticed that people (especially in the USA) call each 1000$ as a 'grand'.

"It costs 48 grand" = "It costs 48 thousand USD"

I have got two related questions about it:

  1. Why is it called 'grand'?
  2. How common is the usage of it in the UK?

Best Answer

The term "grand" is American slang from the early 1900s, presumably from the expression "a grand sum of money" to mean $1,000. As with most questions of etymology, we don't know who first used the phrase. The best we can do, in most cases, is to find the earliest written usage, which is around 1915 for "grand."

The usage of it is quite common (for 10 grand anyway) from this Ngram and is increasing:

Ngram

It is very common in the UK.

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