tael

American  

[teyl] / teɪl /

noun

1. liang.

2. any of various similar units of weight in East Asia.

3. a former Chinese money of account, being the value of this weight of standard silver.

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tael British  

/ teɪl /

noun

1. a unit of weight, used in the Far East, having various values between one to two and a half ounces

2. (formerly) a Chinese monetary unit equivalent in value to a tael weight of standard silver

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Etymology

Origin of tael

First recorded in 1580–90; from Portuguese from Malay tahil “liang”

Example Sentences

Between China and the United States the par of exchange is the market value in our dollars of the amount of silver contained in the tael, the Chinese unit.

From Banking by Scott, William A.

The silver is in lumps of one tael or more each, the tael being a Chinese ounce and equivalent roughly to between 1400 and 1500 cash.

From An Australian in China Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma by Morrison, George Ernest

The kinds of gold that are found among the natives of the city and vicinity of Manila are: Bizlin, which is worth two pesos a tael.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 03 of 55 1569-1576 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century by Blair, Emma Helen

It occasionally rises as high as 6s. 6d., when the proportion between the dollar and the tael is as 100 to 72.

From Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume II (Commodore B. Von Wullerstorf-Urbair,) Undertaken by Order of the Imperial Government in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859, Under the Immediate Auspices of His I. and R. Highness the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Commander-In-Chief of the Austrian Navy. by Scherzer, Karl Ritter von

Its value in Manilla varies, according to quality, at from twenty dollars a tael down to fourteen for the inferior sorts.

From Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines During 1848, 1849 and 1850 by MacMicking, Robert