Dollar
From Freepedia
- For other uses, see Dollar (disambiguation).
The dollar (represented by the dollar sign: "$") is the name of the official currency in several countries, dependencies and other regions. The United States dollar is the world's most widely circulated currency.
Contents |
Numismatic history
The name is related to the historic currencies Tolar in Bohemia, Thaler or Taler in Germany, Daalder in the Netherlands and Daler in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The name thaler (from Thal, or nowadays usually Tal, "valley") originally came from the German Guldengroschen ("great gulden", being of silver but equal in value to a gold gulden) coins minted from the silver from a rich mine at Joachimsthal (St. Joachim's Valley) in Bohemia (then part of the Habsburg Empire). The name "Spanish dollar" was used for a Spanish silver coin, the peso, an eight-real coin, which was widely circulated during the 18th century in the Spanish colonies in the New World. The use of the Spanish dollar and the Maria Theresa thaler as legal tender for the early United States is the reason for the name of the nation's currency. The word dollar was in use in the English language for the thaler for about 200 years before the American Revolution. Spanish dollars, or "pieces of eight" as they were called, were in circulation in the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States, and were legal tender in Virginia.
The dollar was also in use in Scotland during the 17th century, and there is a claim that it was invented at the University of St Andrews.
Until decimalisation in 1971 a half crown coin in the United Kingdom was popularly refered to as half a dollar doubtlessly stemming from the similarity of a crown (issued latterly only as a commemerative coin) resembling a US silver dollar in size and also in value for a number of years.
Synonyms and slang
- The word buck, possibly an abbreviation from buckskin, an intrinsic 'currency' for trade with American Indians known since 1746, has been recorded since 1856. The latter term, skin, is also used as a synonym as is the possibly related term squaw money.
- Greenback simply describes the traditional (remarkably invariable) design of banknotes issued by the United States Federal Reserve, and is not used for coins or dollars of other countries
- incorrect (but see history), is the use of specific other currencies : peso, piaster, shekel, etc.
- other (mostly more general terms for physical money) : ace, banknote, bill, bone, bread, cartwheel, certificate, clam, cucumber, currency, dough, fish, folding money, frog, iron man, legal tender, note, one-spot, simoleans, single, smacker, smackeroo, year
Symbol
The dollar sign $ (see that article) is supposed to be a stylization of the heraldic depiction of Hercules' pillars on the Spanish piece of eight
Related names
- The name of the currency of Samoa, the tala is based on the Samoan pronunciation of the word "dollar". Likewise, the name of the smaller unit, seneiti, equates to "cent".
National currencies called "dollar"
- Australian dollar
- Barbados dollar
- Bahamian dollar
- Belize dollar
- Bermuda dollar
- Brunei dollar
- Canadian dollar
- Cayman Islands dollar
- East Caribbean dollar
- Fijian dollar
- Guyanese dollar
- Hong Kong dollar
- Jamaican dollar
- Liberian dollar
- Namibian dollar
- New Zealand dollar
- Singapore dollar
- Solomon Islands dollar
- Suriname dollar
- New Taiwan dollar
- Trinidad and Tobago dollar
- United States dollar
- Zimbabwean dollar
The name has also been applied to the international dollar, a hypothetical unit of currency that has the same purchasing power that the U.S. dollar has in the United States at a given point in time.
