sycee

American  

[sahy-see] / saɪˈsi /

noun

1. fine uncoined silver in lumps of various sizes usually bearing a banker's or assayer's stamp or mark, formerly used in China as a medium of exchange.

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sycee British  

/ saɪˈsiː /

noun

1. silver ingots formerly used as a medium of exchange in China

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Etymology

Origin of sycee

1705–15; < Chinese dial. (Guangdong) sai-sì, akin to Chinese xìsī silk floss; so called because it can be made into wire as fine as silk thread

Example Sentences

Within certain limits, the large bankers undertake mercantile exchanges; they also refine the sycee, or silver, for the receivers of taxes.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 by Chambers, William

The Bourgeois Philibert had exported largely to China the newly discovered ginseng, for which at first the people of the flowery kingdom paid, in their sycee silver, ounce for ounce.

From The Golden Dog by Kirby, William

Then we got sycee silver, which was prohibited for exportation.

From Ned Myers or, a Life Before the Mast by Cooper, James Fenimore

Indeed, the only men we could find were some converts engaged in stacking up silver shoes, or sycee, in a secluded quadrangle.

From Indiscreet Letters From Peking Being the Notes of an Eye-Witness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, from Day to Day, the Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900—The Year of Great Tribulation by Putnam Weale, B. L. (Bertram Lenox)

Early one morning I was roused by Rung Budruck, the Captain's favourite sycee or groom.

From The Argosy Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 by Wood, Charles W.