dollar

plural dollars · alternative pronunciation spelling dollah · alternative pronunciation spelling dolla'

1. Official designation for currency in some parts of the world, including Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Its symbol is $.

   But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

   2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11

   2 more examples

   Yeah, but why? Lincoln doesn’t need the penny for notoriety. He’s everywhere. We put him on novelty bandages, cup-and-ball games, and creepy Chia Pets. And you know where else we put him? The five-dollar bill! You know, the thing that’s worth 500 times more than the penny!

   2015 November 22, “Pennies”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 35, John Oliver (actor), via HBO

   The value of the peso has plummeted 858% against the US dollar over the past five years as the central bank printed more of the currency to help the country’s spendthrift government avoid defaulting on its debts. […] There’s another significant snag in Milei’s plan: Argentina doesn’t have enough dollars to ditch the peso.

   2023 October 23, Anna Cooban, “Javier Milei wants Argentina to swap the peso for the US dollar. Here’s what that could mean”, in CNN Business

   Synonyms: buck, smackeroo

2. broadlyMoney generally.

   Television, a favored source of news and information, pulls the largest share of advertising monies. In 1935, newspapers received 45 percent of the advertising dollar, magazines 8 percent, and radio 7 percent.

   2002, Marcella Ridlen Ray, Changing and Unchanging Face of United States Civil Society

3. MalaysiabroadlycolloquialA ringgit, a unit of currency in Malaysia.
4. UKcolloquialhistoricalA quarter of a pound or one crown, historically minted as a coin of approximately the same size and composition as a then-contemporary dollar coin of the United States, and worth slightly more.
5. attributivehistoricalImported from the United States, and paid for in U.S. dollars. (Note: distinguish "dollar wheat", North American farmers' slogan, meaning a market price of one dollar per bushel.)

   For there are two luxury imports that lead all the others: dollar films and dollar tobacco.

   1956, The Spectator, volume 197, page 342

   1 more example

   The restricted purchase of dollar tobacco will, we hope, have the effect of increasing the imports of Turkish and Grecian tobacco

   1952 Brigadier Sir Harry Mackeson, House of Commons, London; Hansard, vol 504, col 271, 22 July 1952

6. nuclear physicsA unit of reactivity equal to the interval between delayed criticality and prompt criticality.

plural Dollars

1. countableuncountableA small town in Clackmannanshire council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NS9698)
2. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Coosa County, Alabama, United States.
3. countableuncountableA former community in Ontario, Canada, now part of the city of Markham.
4. countableuncountableA locality in South Gippsland Shire, south eastern Victoria, Australia.
5. countableuncountableA surname.