Word Finder - piastre

definition

A Spanish or Spanish-American coin and unit of currency, originally worth eight real.

definition

A form of currency formerly used in the French-speaking parts of Canada.

definition

A form of currency formerly used in French Indochina.

definition

A form of currency originally used in the Ottoman Empire, and now used as a subunit in the Middle Eastern countries of Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, Jordan, Libya, South Sudan, Turkey and Cyprus

The silver coins were of 20, 10, 5, 2, I and 2 piastre in value, the 20-piastre piece weighing 24.055 grammes, .830 fine.

The coinage formerly was the caroub and piastre (the latter worth about 6d.), but in 1891 the French reformed the coinage, substituting the franc as a unit, and having the money minted at Paris.

The copper money was in pieces of a nominal value of 40, 20, TO, 5 and i paras, 40 paras being equal to 1 piastre.

The one piastre piece is worth a fraction over 24d.

The fff of a piastre is popularly called a para and the native population generally reckon in paras.

Officially the 4 piastre is known as 5 milliemes, and so with the coins of lower denomination, the para being 3/4 millieme.

With the accession of Ismail (q.v.) there followed a period of wild extravagance and reckless borrowing accompanied by the extortion of every piastre possible from the fellahin.

The value of a piastre is about two pence halfpenny.

The general monetary confusion is greatly intensified by the fact that the piastre unit varies for almost every province; thus, while the pound at Constantinople is counted at 108 piastres silver, it is at about 127 piastres for one kind of transaction and 180 for another in Smyrna, 135 piastres at Adrianople, 140 at Jerusalem, and so forth, accounts being kept in " abusive piastres," which exist no longer.

The legal piastre is called the piastre tariff (P.T.), to distinguish it from the 1/2 piastre, which in local usage in Cairo and Alexandria is called a piastre.

It was transformed long since into a fixed amount per head of the animals taxed, which amount varies according to the region in which the tax is levied, the highest tariff being in the sanjak of Jerusalem (72 piastres) and the lowest in the Yemen (1 piastre).

The silver coinage consisted of the mejidie (weight 24.055 grammes, 0.830 fine), equivalent to 20 piastres, and its subdivisions 10, 5, 2, I, and 2 piastre pieces.

The heavy depreciation in silver causing large losses to the government, free coinage was suspended in 1880, and the nominal value of the mejidie was reduced by decree to 19 piastres (105.26 piastres thus = £T1), while in the same year the debased currencies were reduced, altilik, the 6-piastre piece to 5 piastres, the 3-piastre piece to 22 piastres, the 12-piastre piece to 14 piastre; beshlik, the 5-piastre piece to 22 piastres, the 22-piastre piece to 1;-piastre; metallik, the 1-piastre piece to 2 piastre, the 2-piastre piece to 4 piastre, the *-piastre piece to a piastre - these values representing approximately the intrinsic value of the silver, at mejidie standard, contained in the debased coins.

The British sovereign is the current gold coin, the unit of the bronze and silver coinage being the piastre (13 penny).