quid
quid Lexical Profile
quid Game Scores & Validity
• noun
British An informal term for one pound sterling, or a number of pounds sterling.
"The second-hand coat only cost me twenty quid at the local market."
A small lump or wad of something, especially tobacco, held in the mouth for chewing.
"The old sailor tucked a fresh quid of tobacco into his cheek before taking the helm."
Word Nuance & Usage
In British colloquial usage for a pound sterling, 'quid' is invariant in the plural (e.g., 'ten quid', not 'ten quids'), whereas the tobacco sense takes the regular plural 'quids'.
• Rhymes for quid
Word Origin & Etymology
In the monetary sense, recorded since the late 17th century and likely derived from the Latin pronoun 'quid' ('what, something'), as in 'quid pro quo'. In the sense of a lump of chewing tobacco, it is a dialected variant of 'cud', from Old English 'cudu'.