financial

adjective

our financial picture has improved

Syn:

monetary, money, economic, pecuniary, fiscal, banking, commercial, business, investment

••

financial, monetary, pecuniary, fiscal

What's the difference between a financial crisis and a fiscal one? It all depends on who's having trouble with money and the scale of the difficulties. Financial usually applies to money matters involving large sums or transactions of considerable importance (the auction was a financial success). Fiscal refers specifically to the financial affairs of a government, organization, or corporation (the end of the company's fiscal year), while pecuniary refers to money matters of a more personal or practical nature and is preferred to financial when money is being discussed on a smaller scale (pecuniary motives, pecuniary assistance, pecuniary difficulties). Of all these words, monetary refers most directly to money as such and is often used when discussing the coinage, distribution, and circulation of money (the European monetary system; the monetary unit of a country).