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Glite Dictionary
to ask for change

to ask for change

3 4.4
To request small amounts of money from people on the street
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : pedir cambio
  • He will never have to ask for change.

I mean, once you you get the numbers, we can enrich your stories and and you know, kind of ask for change.

Examples

  • As I walk to and from work each day (I live in downtown San Francisco), I am asked for change from an average of about five people per day.

    Blog text (15)

  • The women don't ask for change.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • I hate being asked for change.

    Blog text (31)

  • I was out of change, so I went in and asked for change of a dollar to use the air.

    Blog text (27)

  • My second husband said always to ask for change in dollars or at worst, sterling.

    Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

  • You remember the buskers asking for change.

    Blog text (16)

  • He didn’t ask for change.

    Three Days of Rain (2002)

  • I learned to regard them no differently just because they asked for change, wore soiled clothes, or made their beds out of old blankets and cardboard.

    Blog text (19)

  • I was just asking for change and he whips out his big gun and pushes me up against that tree, whereupon he takes my money and handcuffs me to it, leaving me there all exposed...

    Fiction book (2001)

  • When she saw the street performer, she decided to stop and ask for change to support him.

Synonyms

to beg
vsto ask for change
153 1.0

Ask someone humbly for money or food, often in public

requests small coins in public rather than pleading for charity
to panhandle for
vsto ask for change
  • Informal
1 8.2

To ask strangers on the street for money

requests small coins in public rather than only from strangers
to have one's hand out
vsto ask for change
  • Informal
1 8.8

To ask people for money by showing you need it

requests small coins in public rather than expecting ongoing support

How Desperate

to panhandle
  • Informal
7 7.5
to beg
153 1.0
to ask for change
3 4.4

Surface Forms

ask for change infinitive
asked for change past
asked for change past participle
asking for change present participle
asks for change third person singular

Morphology

ask + for + change

The meaning is directly built from the productive pattern 'ask for X' (to request something) plus 'change' meaning coins/small money; a B1 learner who knows these words will infer it denotes requesting small amounts of money (whether from a person or to break a bill). There is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift and the construction is cross-linguistically common, so the sense is immediately derivable from the parts.

Etymology

Ask for change may come from the simple picture of a person holding a bill and asking a stranger or shopkeeper to change it into coins. So, to ask for change came to mean 'request small amounts of money' in public.