koban

plural kobans · alternative cobang · alternative coebang · alternative kobang

1. An oval gold coin in the Edo period of feudal Japan.

   Every landlord hath two koban paid him for dinner, and three for supper and lodgings at night.

   1906, Ernest W[ilson] Clement, editor, Hildreth’s “Japan as it Was and Is”: A Handbook of Old Japan, volume II, Chicago, Ill.: A. C. McClurg & Co., page 40

   2 more examples

   “Shall we say two koban for this evening—a measure of my desire to please a Lady of such merit?”

   1975, James Clavell, Shōgun: A Novel of Japan, volume 2, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, page 620

   It contained, as usual, nothing but an invitation to come to Edo to confer on matters respecting which it did not enter into any particulars, with an offer of three koban for the expenses of the journey.

   2006, Timon Screech, Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 140

plural kobans

1. A small community police office or a police box, especially one in Japan.

   Personnel of kobans change each shift; they report for duty at a police station and fan out to the kobans.

   1976, David H. Bayley, Forces of Order: Police Behavior in Japan and the United States, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, published 1978, →ISBN, page 13