piastre
1
9.9
- noun
:
piastra
- I had been to the hospital many times before, but I always had to leave my vehicle outside the gate to the outpatient departments and join the queue of visitors waiting to pay the admission of ten piastres, about 10 cents US at that time.
- ten piastres
Examples
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"I've promised him two donkeys' worth of piastres.
Fiction book (2000) -
I got 10,000 piastres.
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A few piastres help to keep one's memory green.
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"My mother gave me the last piastres we had and told me to go through the snow over the mountain to the village in the dry land.
Fiction book (1990) -
I hid behind a rock; still, he found me and stripped off my jacket and took the piastres.
Fiction book (1990) -
Only 10 piastres.
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It was a koshari joint, fifteen piastres a plate.
Blog text (3) -
He replaced the handkerchief in his left cuff and gave each porter ten piastres.
Fiction book (1999) -
I found a few old piastres in my grandmother's jewelry box.
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At the market, a simple meal costs around twenty piastres.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Piastre comes from the Italian piastra, which means 'plate'. Old coins were thin metal plates, so people used that word for a coin, and that's why a piastre now names a small unit of money in countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, and Syria.