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
Here and there we stooped to inspect, and we bought a water-jar for a piastre—an Egyptian piastre, which is really money and worth exactly five cents.
From The Ship Dwellers A Story of a Happy Cruise by Paine, Albert Bigelow
Not long afterwards, these were followed by 2½ and 1 piastre notes, which carried pictures of the Dardanelles and Kut on the back, Kut being quite unrecognizable.
From A Kut Prisoner by Bishop, H. C. W.
The ten piastre piece is the same as our half-dollar.
From In Pastures New by Ade, George
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.
