dollar

[dol-er]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR dollar ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a paper money, silver or cupronickel coin, and monetary unit of the United States, equal to 100 cents. Symbol: $

a silver or nickel coin and monetary unit of Canada, equal to 100 cents. Symbol: $

any of the monetary units of various other nations, as Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Fiji, Guyana, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Liberia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zimbabwe, equal to 100 cents.

Also called ringgit. a cupronickel coin and monetary unit of Brunei, equal to 100 sen.

ringgit.

a thaler.

a peso.

Levant dollar.

yuan(def 1).

British Slang. (formerly)

five-shilling piece; crown.
the sum of five shillings.

Origin of dollar

1545–55; earlier daler < Low German, Dutch daler; cognate with German Taler, short for Joachimsthaler coin minted in Joachimsthal in Bohemia

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for dollar

currency, greenback, buck, clam, certificate, ace, bill, note, single, cucumber, one-spot

Examples from the Web for dollar

Contemporary Examples of dollar

There may be no entrapped pool of human talent left on earth with the dollar value of Cuban athletes.
The Life and Hard Times Of The Family A Cuban Defector Left Behind
Brin-Jonathan Butler
December 19, 2014
In just a few hours on Tuesday, the dollar exchange rate collapsed from 64 to 80 rubles before climbing back to about 68.
How Crimea Crashed the Russian Economy
Anna Nemtsova
December 17, 2014
Pakistan was dancing for the U.S. dollar and joined up with it without any dignity.
Pakistani School Killers Want to Strike the U.S.
Sami Yousafzai, Christopher Dickey
December 17, 2014
At currency auctions, it traded at around 64.45 rubles to the dollar and 78.8 to the euro.
How Crimea Crashed the Russian Economy
Anna Nemtsova
December 17, 2014
In Tuesday trading alone, it plunged by more than 20 percent against the U.S. dollar.
Putin Can’t Bully or Bomb a Recession
Daniel Gross
December 16, 2014

Historical Examples of dollar

But in Spain, the dollar goes as far as the pound in England.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327
Various
One of these missing is worse than a bank clerk out a dollar at the end of the day.
K
Mary Roberts Rinehart
This gentleman gave me a certificate, and, as I left him, handed me a dollar.
Ned Myers
James Fenimore Cooper
A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
The Devil's Dictionary
Ambrose Bierce
And you have kept every dollar of your money from the charity of emancipating the slave.
Slavery Ordained of God
Rev. Fred A. Ross, D.D.

British Dictionary definitions for dollar

dollar

noun

the standard monetary unit of the US and its dependencies, divided into 100 cents

the standard monetary unit, comprising 100 cents, of the following countries or territories: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kiribati, Liberia, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, and Zimbabwe

British informal (formerly) five shillings or a coin of this value

look or feel (like) a million dollars informal to look or feel extremely well

Word Origin for dollar

C16: from Low German daler, from German Taler, Thaler, short for Joachimsthaler coin made from metal mined in Joachimsthal Jachymov, town now in the Czech Republic

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for dollar

1550s, from Low German daler, from German taler (1530s, later thaler), abbreviation of Joachimstaler, literally "(gulden) of Joachimstal," coin minted 1519 from silver from mine opened 1516 near Joachimstal, town in Erzgebirge Mountains in northwest Bohemia. German Tal is cognate with English dale.

The thaler was a large silver coin of varying value in the German states (and a unit of the German monetary union of 1857-73 equal to three marks); it also served as a currency unit in Denmark and Sweden. English colonists in America used the word in reference to Spanish pieces of eight. Continental Congress July 6, 1785, adopted dollar when it set up U.S. currency, on suggestion of Gouverneur Morris and Thomas Jefferson, because the term was widely known but not British. But none were circulated until 1794.

When William M. Evarts was Secretary of State he accompanied Lord Coleridge on an excursion to Mount Vernon. Coleridge remarked that he had heard it said that Washington, standing on the lawn, could throw a dollar clear across the Potomac. Mr. Evarts explained that a dollar would go further in those days than now. [Walsh]

The dollar sign ($) is said to derive from the image of the Pillars of Hercules, stamped with a scroll, on the Spanish piece of eight. Phrase dollars to doughnuts attested from 1890; dollar diplomacy is from 1910.

Idioms and Phrases with dollar

dollar

In addition to the idiom beginning with dollars

dollars to doughnuts, it's

also see:

feel like a million dollars
look like a million dollars
you can bet your ass (bottom dollar)