Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A gold coin of the Roman Empire used in Europe until the 1400s.
- noun Printing A virgule; a slash.
- noun Chemistry The maximum temperature at which all components of a mixture, such as an alloy, can be in a solid state.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A gold coin introduced by Constantine the Great to take the place of the aureus, previously the chief coin of the Roman currency.
- noun A sign (/) used to denote the English shilling, representing the old lengthened form of
s ., as in 2/6, for 2 s. 6 d.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The line between the
numerator and thedenominator of afraction . - noun A
forward slash orvirgule . - noun A late
Roman gold coin (after 3rd CenturyCE ); abezant . - noun chemistry, physics a
line , in aphase diagram , below which a givensubstance is a stablesolid and above whichsolid and liquid are inequilibrium
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a gold coin of the Byzantine Empire; widely circulated in Europe in the Middle Ages
- noun a punctuation mark (/) used to separate related items of information
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It is less often remembered that he built a third pillar, almost as important as the other two: he issued a new gold coin, called the solidus in Latin and the nomisma in Greek, which remained the basis of Byzantine coinage for 700 years.
superversive: Gondor, Byzantium, and Feudalism superversive 2010
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It's similar to but not the same as the solidus, which is the diagonal line in a fraction.
Archive 2008-05-01 2008
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Charlemagne and later the solidus was the equivalent in value of twelve denarii.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 9: Laprade-Mass Liturgy 1840-1916 1913
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The earlier denarius, worth about eightpence, clearly will not do; and the matter is made more difficult by the fact that Cassiodorus is talking about the ancients (veteres), whereas the solidus was a comparatively modern coin.
The Letters of Cassiodorus Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator Senator Cassiodorus 1872
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I agree with you solidus, that is perhaps the most frustrating thing about iTunes.
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And I would say that the British pound "knit" the world economy together long before the birth of Ben Bernanke, while the golden solidus of ancient Byzantium circulated as global money ages before the reign of Queen Victoria.
How the Dollar Rules by Fiat James Grant 2011
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The excellence of Byzantine administration—hardly Byzantine at all by our usage—is nowhere clearer than in the power of the Byzantine standard gold coin, the solidus known as the bezant in medieval Europe.
The Glories of Byzantium Judith Herrin 2011
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A virgule is closer to the vertical than a solidus, but usually one has to see them side by side in the same typeface to know the difference.
Archive 2008-05-01 2008
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The relationship between infectivity of Schistocephalus solidus Cestoda and anti-predator behavior of its intermediate host, the three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus.
Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009
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Phenotypic manipulation by the cestode parasite Schistocephalus solidus of its intermediate host, Gasterosteus aculeatus, the threespine stickleback.
Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2009
reesetee commented on the word solidus
The so-called forward slash or stroke. Also virgule.
February 23, 2007
Telofy commented on the word solidus
solidus: “⁄”
virgule: “/”
According to The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst the solidus, as opposed to the virgule (slash), “slopes at close to 45° and kerns on both sides.”
See also Wikipedia: solidus
June 10, 2010
chained_bear commented on the word solidus
"Even with the Chinese military presence, there was no documented traffic between China and Rome during the years of the Roman Empire. Contrary to popular belief, Romans did not exchange gold coins directly for Chinese silk. The earliest Roman gold coins found in China are Byzantine solidus coins, including many imitations. ... They come from tombs dated to the sixth century, long after Emperor Constantine (reigned 312-37 CE) moved the empire's capital to Constantinople."
--Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2012), 9
December 30, 2016