peso

     

The wor peso (meaning weight in Spanish) was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally. Peso is now the name of the monetary unit of several former Spanish colonies. This article gives a brief summary of the origin and evolution of the peso coin, which was the basic silver coin of Spanish America from the 15th through the 19th centuries (see: Currency of Spanish America). This coin was originally known in English as a piece of eight, then as a Spanish dollar, and then as a Mexican dollar. This peso coin was called piastre in French and pataca or patacão in Portuguese. In Spanish, this peso was also known at various times and in various places as a patacón, a duro, or a fuerte.

Trivia about peso

  • Chile uses this basic unit of currency
  • Like Mexico, the Philippines uses this as its basic monetary unit
  • You'd use bills in this monetary unit to buy a tuba in Cuba or magazines in the Philippines
  • In February 2002 this Argentine currency began floating, a sign the economy was sinking
  • The $ may have originated as PS, an abbreviation for this other monetary unit
  • It's the currency of Mexico, Senor
  • The currency of Cuba
  • (Jimmy of the Clue Crew explains with an animated illustration on the monitor.) The most common theory of the origin of the dollar sign is that instead of writing Ps as a plural, people started putting the S over the P; the P stood for this

Found pages about peso

Users that searched for peso