Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various units of weight used in eastern Asia, roughly equivalent to 38 grams (1 1/3 ounces).
- noun A unit of currency formerly used in China, equivalent in value to this weight of standard silver.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The Chinese liang or ounce, equal to 1⅛ ounces avoirdupois. See
liang . - noun A liang or ounce of “sycee,” or fine uncoined silver: the unit of monetary reckoning in China.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A denomination of money, in China, worth nearly six shillings sterling, or about a dollar and forty cents; also, a weight of one ounce and a third.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several units of measure used in China and elsewhere in eastern Asia, approximately 40 grams.
- noun Any of several monetary units equal to the equivalent weight in
silver . - noun Hong Kong
leung , a traditional unit ofweight , in modern usage legally defined as 1/16 of acatty orkan (斤 ) or 0.0377993638kilograms
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a unit of weight used in east Asia approximately equal to 1.3 ounces
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Therefore to convert Lanchow cash into Tientsin cash you must divide the Lanchow cash by 3, count 975 as 1000, and consider this equal to a certain percentage of a theoretical amount of silver known as a tael, which is always varying of itself as well as by the fluctuations in the market value of silver, and which is not alike in any two places, and may widely vary in different portions of the same place.
AN AUSTRALIAN IN CHINA Morrison, George Ernest, 1862-1920 1895
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Therefore to convert Lanchow cash into Tientsin cash you must divide the Lanchow cash by 3, count 975 as 1000, and consider this equal to a certain percentage of a theoretical amount of silver known as a tael, which is always varying of itself as well as by the fluctuations in the market value of silver, and which is not alike in any two places, and may widely vary in different portions of the same place.
An Australian in China Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma George Ernest Morrison 1891
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Scrap refiners, known as fabricators, were then charging $5-$10 per Chinese tael, which is comparable to an ounce.
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Silver, measured out in a unit called a tael, each equivalent to a thousand coppers, was the trading medium of the powerful hong merchants of Canton.
City of Glory Beverly Swerling 2007
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Silver, measured out in a unit called a tael, each equivalent to a thousand coppers, was the trading medium of the powerful hong merchants of Canton.
City of Glory Beverly Swerling 2007
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The tael is a weight of silver which varies considerably in value; in 1906 the Haikwan tael, in which the custom revenues and all values are given, was equivalent to 2.46 Indian rupees, 1.60 Japanese yen, Mexican $1.54, English 3s 3 1/2d.,
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 3: Brownson-Clairvaux 1840-1916 1913
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[26] The tael is a Chinese money of account, worth formerly about
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But one meets persistently the word "tael" in their estimate of the value of things.
Negritos of Zambales William Allan Reed
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Besides, the saving of a tael is a small matter. "
Hung Lou Meng, Book II Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books Xueqin Cao
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Gold reached a record of 33 million dong ($1,693) per tael Wednesday, about $1,405 a troy ounce.
Vietnam Considers Allowing Gold Imports Vu Trong Khanh 2010
chained_bear commented on the word tael
For usage note see johannes.
March 4, 2008