money (plural, bani)
Grammatically plural, so the verb and any adjective agree in the plural: banii sunt.
Nu am bani.
I don't have any money.
Unde sunt banii?
Where's the money?
#137 · Noun
ban
In Romanian, ban means “money (plural, bani)”. It’s the #137 most frequently used Romanian word. Below you’ll find how to use it, its forms, real example sentences, and common word pairings.
Meaning & Use
Ban is a coin — but the word you actually need is its plural. Romanian has no mass noun for money: bani IS money, and the singular ban is a single coin or the hundredth of a leu. Rank 137, masculine, and the measured data shows it plainly — the plural outnumbers the singular thirty to one.
neutralcoin / small change
The singular, for one physical coin.
un ban vechi
an old coin
bani (currency unit)
One hundred bani make one leu. Prices show it: 5 lei și 50 de bani.
cincizeci de bani
fifty bani
a penny (in negatives)
The singular under a negation means "not a penny": nu am niciun ban.
Nu am niciun ban.
I haven't got a penny.
Forms you’ll actually hear
Ranked by how often each form shows up in spoken Romanian. The top 2 forms cover about 96% of everyday use — learn these first.
bani57%
banii39%
Show 3 more forms
ban2%
banilor1%
banul<1%
Noun Forms
- Gender
- masculine
- Countability
- countable
| singular indefinite | ban | |
|---|---|---|
| singular definite | banul | |
| plural indefinite | bani | |
| plural definite | banii | |
| genitive dative singular | banului | |
| genitive dative plural | banilor |
A regular masculine noun: ban, banul, bani, banii, with the plural -i and the article -i written together as ii. The lopsided counts are semantic rather than grammatical — the singular is rare because one coin is rarely the point.
Examples
Nu am bani la mine.
I don't have any money on me.
bani - The bare plural for money in general. la mine means "on my person".
Banii sunt pe masă.
The money is on the table.
banii - The verb is plural — sunt, not e — because bani is grammatically plural even though English treats money as singular.
Cheltuiește toți banii.
He spends all the money.
banii - toți agrees in the masculine plural. The definite article stays on the noun.
Costă zece lei și cincizeci de bani.
It costs ten lei fifty.
bani - The currency sense. Numbers above nineteen insert de: cincizeci de bani.
Nu am niciun ban.
I don't have a penny.
ban - The singular survives mainly here, under a negation with niciun for emphasis.
Money is plural in Romanian. Banii sunt aici, never *banii e aici, and a question about price is Ai bani? not *Ai ban?. Treating bani as a singular mass noun is the mistake an English speaker makes first with this word.