El Salvadoran colon
- noun
- Archaic
:
colón salvadoreño
- Before 2001, prices in El Salvador were listed in El Salvadoran colons rather than US dollars.
Examples
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Tourists today can no longer use the El Salvadoran colon in El Salvador, as the country now uses the US dollar.
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I exchanged my dollars for El Salvadoran colons at the bank.
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The value of the El Salvadoran colon fluctuated significantly during the late 20th century.
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The price of the book was 10 El Salvadoran colons.
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Before 2001, prices in El Salvador were listed in El Salvadoran colons rather than US dollars.
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The value of the El Salvadoran colon fluctuated significantly during the late 20th century.
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Tourists today can no longer use the El Salvadoran colon in El Salvador, as the country now uses the US dollar.
Synonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
El + Salvadoran + colon
The phrase is a straightforward composition of a demonym/adjective ('Salvadoran') with a noun for a unit of money ('colon'), so a learner who knows those words can infer it refers to the currency of El Salvador. This modifier+noun construction is cross-linguistically common and follows normal English composition patterns, making the meaning immediately derivable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
El Salvadoran colon gets its name from the Spanish name for Christopher Columbus, 'Colón', and old coins and bills often showed his image. That's why the word colon came to mean the country's basic unit of 'currency' before El Salvador switched to the US dollar.