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When we are talking about money, is there any difference between "small change" and "loose change"? It seems that both mean "coins of little value."
These are examples from Oxford Dictionaries:
I didn't have any small change (= coins of low value) to leave as a tip.
He puts his loose change in a money box for the children.
"Small change" can refer to coins of low value, or to paper money of low value, or metaphorically to anything of low relative worth; a couple of $50 bills is "small change" to someone looking for a $200,000 payment, for example.
"Loose change" specifically refers to all of the coins that you happen to have in your pockets or purse that are not rolled or bundled up; if you got two quarters back from a purchase and just dropped them into your front pocket, for example, that's loose change. If you put the quarters into a sleeve for making a "roll of quarters", then they aren't loose anymore. (In a coin purse or a wallet pouch, they're probably still able to rattle about and make noise, which is a key element of being considered "loose", I think.)
