dollar

[ dol-er ]

noun

1. a paper money, silver or cupronickel coin, and monetary unit of the United States, equal to 100 cents. : $
2. a silver or nickel coin and monetary unit of Canada, equal to 100 cents. : $
3. any of the monetary units of various other nations, as Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, East Timor, Fiji, Guyana, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Liberia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zimbabwe, equal to 100 cents.
4. Also called ringgit. a cupronickel coin and monetary unit of Brunei, equal to 100 sen.
5. ringgit ( def ).
6. a thaler.
7. a peso.
8. Levant dollar.
9. yuan ( def 1 ).
10. British Slang. (formerly)
    1. five-shilling piece; crown.
    2. the sum of five shillings.

dollar

/ ˈdɒlə /

noun

1. the standard monetary unit of the US and its dependencies, divided into 100 cents
2. the standard monetary unit, comprising 100 cents, of the following countries or territories: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kiribati, Liberia, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, and Zimbabwe
3. informal.
   (formerly) five shillings or a coin of this value
4. look or feel (like) a million dollars informal.
   look or feel (like) a million dollars to look or feel extremely well

Word History and Origins

Origin of dollar¹

First recorded in 1545–55; earlier daler, from Low German, Dutch daler; cognate with German Taler, short for Joachimsthaler, a silver coin minted in Joachimsthal ( Czech Jáchymov ) in Bohemia

Word History and Origins

Origin of dollar¹

C16: from Low German daler, from German Taler, Thaler, short for Joachimsthaler coin made from metal mined in Joachimsthal Jachymov, town now in the Czech Republic

Idioms and Phrases

In addition to the idiom beginning with dollars , also see feel like a million dollars ; look like a million dollars ; you can bet your ass (bottom dollar) .

Example Sentences

Ransomware is a tried-and-true criminal business model that generates millions of dollars in revenue every year.

From MIT Technology Review

As ad dollars shift from traditional TV to streaming, CTV platforms, streaming aggregators and individual media companies are similarly vying to situate themselves to be the one managing that money.

From Digiday

After it would have likely spent tens of billions of dollars to purchase TikTok, the best thing Microsoft could do to recoup that money may be to do not much at all.

From Digiday

ByteDance has been pouring billions of dollars into TikTok annually.

From Digiday

That would be a particular issue for the upfront advertisers that commit to spend millions of dollars with Hulu in exchange for a guaranteed number of impressions.

From Digiday

It was a very faithful homage to a Six Million Dollar Man episode.

From The Daily Beast

Neither could her three-week, multi-thousand dollar stay, which was supposed to be a recovery period.

From The Daily Beast

It is a multimillion-dollar business in which roughly 15 million fowl die a year.

From The Daily Beast

Meanwhile, big dollar advertising campaigns have taken an explicit rainbow-hued slant.

From The Daily Beast

There may be no entrapped pool of human talent left on earth with the dollar value of Cuban athletes.

From The Daily Beast

The lack of bill buyers in foreign countries who will quote as low rates on dollar as on sterling bills.

From Project Gutenberg

At that time, the postage on letters from that region was very high, sometimes as much as fifty or sixty cents, or even a dollar.

From Project Gutenberg

In the metal of the tenor several coins are visible, one being a Spanish dollar of 1742.

From Project Gutenberg

It stands at one extreme of our currency, with a dollar of gold set aside behind each dollar of paper.

From Project Gutenberg

Not a dollar did he possess—not even did he have a suit of clothes any more, and wore every day his corduroys.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• currency
• greenback