piastre
Britishnoun
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(formerly) the standard monetary unit of South Vietnam, divided into 100 cents
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a fractional monetary unit of Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria worth one hundredth of a pound; formerly also used in the Sudan
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another name for kuruş
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a rare word for piece of eight
Etymology
Origin of piastre
C17: from French piastre, from Italian piastra d'argento silver plate; related to Italian piastro plaster
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
If Hosni Mubarak has passed his alleged $70bn through British banks, the Egyptians won't see a piastre of it.
From The Guardian • Feb. 7, 2011
Today the improved flow has so increased the supply of goods coming into Saigon that it has driven down the black-market rate of the piastre from 173 to 145 to the dollar.
From Time Magazine Archive
On account of what may have been smuggled, however, the whole annual importation, he supposes, may have amounted to seventeen millions of piastres, which, at 4s. 6d. the piastre, is equal to L.3,825,000 sterling.
From An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Garnier, Germain
I have just had a quantity of rice cleaned, for doing which, previously to the plague I gave a piastre and a half, and now I have given six piastres.
From Journal of a Residence at Bagdad During the Years 1830 and 1831 by Scott, A. J. (Alexander John)
"A captain of cavalry," said I, slipping him the twenty-five piastre note.
From Caught by the Turks by Yeats-Brown, Francis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
