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From: youngm@utecfa.UUCP (Michael Young)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Origin of the word "dollar"
Message-ID: <1733@utecfa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Jun-85 20:51:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: utecfa.1733
Posted: Tue Jun 25 20:51:51 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Jun-85 23:41:39 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Engineering Computing Facility, University of Toronto
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From article <196@persci.UUCP> by bill@persci.UUCP:
> By the way, does anybody know the origin of the word 'dollar'? I've never met
> anyone who does. The nearest word to it is the Spanish (Latin?) 'dolore',
> which, I'm told, means 'pain'. 

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, it comes from
the early Flemish word "daler", or from the German "taler" (formerly also
"thaler"), short for Joachimstaler, applied to a silver coin made from
metal obtained in Joachimstal (i.e. Joachim's Valley) in the Erzgebirge,
Germany.  The forms "doler", "dolor" appeared in the 16th century, "dollor"
and "dollar" in the 17th century.
-- 
Michael Robert Young
U of T Electrical Engineering

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