reserve currency

American  

noun

1. any currency, as the U.S. dollar, used as a medium to settle international debts.

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reserve currency British  

noun

1. foreign currency that is acceptable as a medium of international payments and that is therefore held in reserve by many countries

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Etymology

Origin of reserve currency

First recorded in 1965–70

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

reserve currency

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently told an interviewer that the dollar might not remain the global reserve currency if our nation loses its military and economic strength relative to competing global powers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

The US's position as the world's largest economy and the dollar being the world's reserve currency gives the US a "much longer runway to fiscally misbehave" than other countries, El-Erian says.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

And it was the mechanics of the U.S. move that raised questions about the dollar’s status as the international reserve currency, as Joseph Adinolfi explained.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026

“We’ve got sluggish growth, high bond yields, bond markets are watching very closely and we don’t have a major reserve currency like the U.S.,” says Michael Saunders, an adviser at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

As a basket of European currencies, the ECU serves as a reserve currency in Europe and probably beyond.

From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Mihai Nadin

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