tael

American  

[teyl] / teɪl /

noun

1. liang.

2. any of various similar units of weight in East Asia.

3. a former Chinese money of account, being the value of this weight of standard silver.

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tael British  

/ teɪl /

noun

1. a unit of weight, used in the Far East, having various values between one to two and a half ounces

2. (formerly) a Chinese monetary unit equivalent in value to a tael weight of standard silver

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Etymology

Origin of tael

First recorded in 1580–90; from Portuguese from Malay tahil “liang”

Example Sentences

A tael is worth $1.40, so you can see for yourselves what a big sum this is.

From The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 58, December 16, 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls by Bishop, Julia Truitt

The weight of a tael is one and one-eighth ounces.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 03 of 55 1569-1576 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century by Blair, Emma Helen

Rio, Riyo, rā-ō′, n. a Japanese ounce, esp. of silver: a tael.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various

Between China and the United States the par of exchange is the market value in our dollars of the amount of silver contained in the tael, the Chinese unit.

From Banking by Scott, William A.

It occasionally rises as high as 6s. 6d., when the proportion between the dollar and the tael is as 100 to 72.

From Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume II (Commodore B. Von Wullerstorf-Urbair,) Undertaken by Order of the Imperial Government in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859, Under the Immediate Auspices of His I. and R. Highness the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Commander-In-Chief of the Austrian Navy. by Scherzer, Karl Ritter von