Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A unit of currency equal to 1/100 of the primary unit of currency in Egypt and various other countries of the Middle East.
- noun Piece of eight.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The unit of Turkish currency, represented by a silver coin worth about 4.4 United States cents (the Turkish name for it is ghū rū sh).
- noun The Spanish dollar. See
dollar , 1, and peso.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A silver coin of Spain and various other countries. See
peso . The Spanish piaster (commonly calledpeso , orpeso duro ) is of about the value of the American dollar. The Italian piaster, or scudo, was worth from 80 to 100 cents. The Turkish and Egyptian piasters are now worth about four and a half cents.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Alternative spelling of
piastre .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun 100 kurus equal 1 lira in Turkey
- noun a fractional monetary unit in Egypt and Lebanon and Sudan and Syria
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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A piaster was a lowdenomination Egyptian coin vaguely equivalent in value to an American penny.
From This Beloved Hour Lambert, Willa 1982
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A piaster is a silver coin of various countries, here representing about a dollar.
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French group, but in South America twenty-five years ago a piaster was a piaster.
Mystic Isles of the South Seas. Frederick O'Brien 1900
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Each dead SOG member has a $10,000 piaster price on his head.
Barry Toll 2010
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He promoted Ismail as “a thrifty saving landlord who looked after every piaster.”
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
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He promoted Ismail as “a thrifty saving landlord who looked after every piaster.”
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
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He promoted Ismail as “a thrifty saving landlord who looked after every piaster.”
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
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Obsessed with discovering the tomb, Komotsos would save every piaster he earned and, when not waiting tables, go off and dig holes everywhere he could in the city.
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Esne every one receives one piaster from the mosque, at parting.
Travels in Nubia 2004
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The old lady pointed out the machine-gunner on top of the personnel carrier as the thief, and when the lieutenant ordered the man to empty his pockets, piaster notes tumbled out.
The Village Bing West 2000
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