what is the difference between "l'argent" and "la monnaie" ?

Question

What is the difference between "l'argent" and "la monnaie" ? Are both used to reference to money ?

Answer 1

Argent (which literally means "silver") is used to mean "money" in all cases.

Monnaie has several different usages:

• "coins", especially petite monnaie

• "change", as in "the money given back to you after you pay with more than the exact amount", which can perfectly well include bills

• "any small amount of cash", as in T'as de la monnaie ? (an English-speaker could well say "Do you have some change?"). I often understand this as stemming from "do you have some small coins so that I can make up the exact amount on what I have to pay so that I don't have to break out a large bill or cheque or card?", which is more polite than "I don't have any money, can you help me out?". I have absolutely no research for this interpretation!

• "currency", as in La monnaie américaine est le dollar, or La monnaie britannique connaît des problèmes à cause du Brexit.

You also have the word pièce / pièces (short for pièces de monnaie), which (in context) always means "coin / coins" (cf. "thirty pieces of silver", "pieces of eight"), as opposed to billets (short for billets de banque), which is paper money (cf. "bill", "banknote").

Answer 2

"L'argent" can be related to everything about money like banknotes or coins. "monnaie" is usually use to speak about coins only.