money talks

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Also seen as: money talks and bullshit walks

Meaning · English

Personification for money giving influence to those who have it.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

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Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.
But usually money talks in football, no matter what the club, and if United do raise their bid, Wednesday — despite their protestations — may find it hard to resist.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed on Wikipedia “List of proverbial phrases” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Personification (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).

Common questions

What does “money talks” mean?

Personification for money giving influence to those who have it.

Is “money talks” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.