SIMOLEON \suh.MOW.lee.un\. n. an old US slang term for one dollar

In early eighteenth-century Britain, the small silver coin whose proper name was sixpence was often slangily called a simon. We’re not sure why, but a plausible origin lies in the name of Thomas Simon, a famous seventeenth-century engraver at the London Mint who designed some new coins after the Restoration in 1660, including the sixpence. (A New Testament reference, to St Peter “lodging with one Simon a tanner”, led to the coin later being called a tanner instead.) Simon seems to have been taken to the USA and transferred to the dollar coin (the name is said to have been recorded in the 1850s). Having in mind the much more valuable French gold coins called Napoleons, some wit bundled simon and Napoleon together and made from it simoleon.

Although the word is not used much nowadays, it is considered well known enough to appear in newspaper crossword puzzles from time to time. The crossword clues for this word have typically been things like [Clam], [Buck], or [Smacker], which follow the tradition of using slang in a clue to indicate that the answer is also slang.

Simoleon has the obscure anagram OINOMELS. Oinomel is a variant spelling of OENOMEL, pronounced \EE.nuh.mel\, which is a sweet ancient Greek beverage of wine mixed with honey.

DALASI \dah.LAH.see\ n. the basic unit of currency of Gambia, pl. -S

USURY \YOO.zhuh.ree\ n. the lending of money at excessive, often unlawful, interest rates

The much despised usurer goes under a variety of names (including the widely used loan shark), but my favorite is the Irish term, GOMBEEN (often in the phrase gombeen man)…

Behind a web of bottles, bales,
Tobacco, sugar, coffin nails
The gombeen like a spider sits,
Surfeited; and, for all his wits,
As meagre as the tally-board
On which his usuries are scored.
— Joseph Campbell

Typical crossword clues for usury include the following…

• Illegal lending tactic
• Exorbitant interest
• Loan shark’s crime
• Shylock’s practice
• Something of great interest?

That last one is a bit cute don’t you think?

Collins/CSW/SOWPODS players get to play many more derivatives of today’s word than their North American counterparts. These include USURE (v. to practice usury), USURESS (n. a female loan shark, not to mention a rather sneaky hook to USURES), and USUROUS (adj. pertaining to usury). These players also get to play the handy, if unlikely, extension: GOMBEENISM.

KUNA \KOO.nuh\ n. the basic monetary unit of Croatia, pl. KUNA or KUNE

Lipa, on the other hand, is derived from the Serbo-Croat word for LINDEN (or lime tree).

Collins/CSW/SOWPODS players also get to play the Anglicized plural LIPAS, and the shorter form of linden, LIND.

SOM \sohm\ n. the basic monetary unit of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan

UNIFACE \YOO.nee.face\ n. a coin that is blank on one side

Needless to say, the scarcity of pattern coins can make them very valuable. The one in the picture is an extremely rare Australian 1937 uniface pattern florin, and comes from the famous collection of renowned numismatist, Jerome Remick. It sold in a 2006 auction for £48,300!

And one more thing. If you think you’ve nabbed yourself a bargain uniface from eBay, when it arrives check to see if the blank side is smooth. Because if it looks something like this…

then your word of the day is DUPED.

BROCKAGE \BROK.ij\ n. a particular type of misprinted coin

I figured that just like in stamp-collecting, botched coins would often be highly sought after collectors’ items too, so I did a bit of research. Naturally, I was on the lookout for some cool words in the process…

A brockage is what results when a pressed coin fails to exit the press when the next blank planchet enters the press to be struck. The coin that fails to exit the press is usually stuck to the hammer die (typically the reverse), and is known as a “cap” because of the form it assumed (like a bottle cap). So, when the new blank planchet is struck, the obverse side is struck with the normal obverse die, but the reverse side is struck against the “cap” (the coin that did not exit from the press correctly). So, you end up with a correctly struck coin obverse and an incuse mirrored image of the obverse on the reverse side of the coin. This is known as a brockage.
— Australian Threepence

I think it’s fun to work out auxiliary definitions from contexts like this, but just in case you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick summary…

PLANCHET n. a blank metal disc prepared to be stamped to make a coin
OBVERSE n. the primary or ‘heads’ side of a coin
INCUSE v. (of a coin) to mark with a stamped impression (also adj.)

The coin in the picture at the top of this post would be called an obverse brockage, because the ‘heads’ side of the coin is repeated on the reverse side as an incuse mirror image.

KYAT \chaat or kee.ART\ n. the basic monetary unit of Myanmar (Burma)

BAKSHEESH \bak.SHEESH or BAK.sheesh\ n. a custom of offering a small sum of money, with a variety of intentions, in parts of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Also BAKSHISH

The following excerpt from the travel diary of TourEgypt guide, Joyce Carta, provides by far the most vivid description of the baksheesh culture I’ve been able to find…

Basically, there are three kinds of baksheesh. The first is baksheesh as “alms giving.” One of the 5 tenants of Islam is the giving of alms to the poor. The giver is made more holy by the action. We encountered surprisingly few opportunities in the streets for this kind of baksheesh. Either the government provides well for the potential beggars or the people are more industrious and thus embarrassed to spend their lives in this fashion.
 
The second type is baksheesh as “for services rendered.” This is the closest to the western tipping practices. Except it goes further. There are people at the airport whose only job appears to be opening doors. Of course, they require baksheesh. And every bathroom has an attendant, who expects a few piastres for keeping the place clean (supposedly). One is continuously passing out a few piastres here and a few there. Thank goodness the group had the central tipping kitty administered by the tour guide, who knew the proper amount to baksheesh.
 
The third kind of baksheesh is “for the granting of favors.” Want to see what’s in the tomb which is posted as closed? A few piastres will see a key miraculously produced. Want to see an excellent photo location? Just 25 piastres. How about having a light in that museum display case? Don’t forget me when you leave. Want to see a forbidden mummy? Only another 50 piastres The amazing thing is that you don’t even need to ask for the services. Upon identifying a mark, even the museum guards will follow you around and provide services and grant favors. Interestingly, after getting over the initial adverse reaction to the practice, it becomes expected and even pleasurable. In the Museum of Islamic Art, for instance, we really appreciated the guard who turned on lights and pointed out features in terribly broken English. Without him we never would have enjoyed some beautifully illuminated manuscripts. It was a pleasure to give him 2 pounds as we left. And the smile on his face was rewarding also.

Interestingly, from what I can tell at least, baksheesh has only once appeared in a New York Times crossword puzzle, and that was over a decade ago! The clue was [Payment to expedite service ]. A polite word for ‘bribe’.

For Scrabblers playing to Collins/CSW/SOWPODS, you can also take advantage of the following variants of today’s word: BACKSHEESH, BACKSHISH, BAKHSHISH, BUCKSHISH. This lexicon also allows all of these variants as verbs, while only BAKSHISH can be treated as a verb in the North American lexicon.

RIYAL \ree.AAL\ the basic monetary unit of Saudi Arabia and Qatar

The picture above is of a one riyal Saudi bank note. The Saudi riyal is subdivided into a unit called the HALALA (also HALALAH) equal to 1/100th of a riyal.

There was once an intermediate Saudi denomination, which divided the riyal into 20 units (each equal to 5 halala), but it is no longer in circulation. The difficulty in transliterating Arabic script has led to this denomination being labeled variously as the GIRSH, GURSH, QURSH, QURUSH, and a bunch of other spellings that aren’t allowed in Scrabble.

Qatar used the Saudi currency for a short while, but eventually branched off into its own version of the riyal…

The Qatari riyal is subdivided into 100 DIRHAM .

Unlike the other obscure (to most of us!) currencies I’ve talked about this month, the riyal is considered well known enough to appear in American newspaper crossword puzzles from time to time, albeit only with straightforward clues like [Qatari bank note] or [Saudi Arabian currency].

There are lots of currencies with names very much like the riyal, by the way, many being cognate with it. (What? You don’t remember what COGNATE means? Shame on you! I told you back here.)

Here are some of those currencies, which we might explore in more detail another time…

• 1 Yemeni Rial = 100 FIL
• 1 Omani Rial = 1000 BAIZA
• 1 Irani Rial = 100 DINAR = 10 TOMAN
• 1 Cambodian Riel = 100 SEN

These currencies can trace their names back to an old Spanish coin called the REAL.

So next time you’re playing Scrabble, you can surprise your opponent by pluralizing the otherwise adjectival real to REALS (or by playing its odd-looking variant, REALES). Hopefully I don’t need to remind you that if you didn’t already know this trick, then you owe me a beer!

RUFIYAA \ROO.fee.yah\ n. the standard monetary unit of the Maldives

The rufiyaa is subdivided into 100 units called LAARI (or less commonly, LARI or LAREE)…

Today’s word is one of only three currencies (that I’m aware of at least!) that have the awkward sequence -IYA- in their names. I introduced you to another such currency the other day. I’m sure we’ll get to the third before long ;-)

And to save you checking, neither rufiyaa nor laari have any anagrams allowed in Scrabble.

P.S. Both rufiyaa and laari are usually used as their own plurals, however Collins/CSW/SOWPODS players can add an -S to form the alternative Anglicized plurals if they need a place for their bingo.

NGULTRUM \eng.GUL.trum\ n. the basic monetary unit used in Bhutan

This sound, or PHONEME more technically, is referred to as the velar nasal and is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol ŋ (which is a bit like the Greek letter ETA, you might recall). This symbol in turn is often called the ENG or AGMA.

The ngultrum is pegged at a value of one Indian RUPEE and is completely interchangeable with that currency unit. Like most decimal currencies it is further subdivided into 100 units, each called a CHETRUM. Below is a Bhutanese coin valued at 10 chetrums. This coin isn’t used very much anymore, but it’s too interesting-looking not to show you one…

ARIARY \ar.ee.AR.ee\ n. the basic monetary unit of Madagascar

The Malagasy (that’s what you call anything relating to Madagascar) currency is one of only two non-decimal currencies in use world wide. Do you remember the other one?

The ariary is divided into five iraimbilanja. I haven’t put that one in upper case because it turns out not to be allowed in Scrabble. But that doesn’t mean we can’t look at one…

It seems a shame for such a Scrabbly looking word to be illegal, but let’s be honest, you never would have got to play it anyway.

Do you know what the horned fellow on both of the pictures above is called? He’s a ZEBU, which is a domesticated ox that is common in Madagascar. In fact, many Malagasy banknotes celebrate the endemic flora and fauna for which Madagascar is famous.

The 1000 ariary note depicts a cactus-like plant called a SISAL…

while the 2000 ariary note shows off the BAOBAB, famous for the fact that of its 8 known species, 6 can only be found in Madagascar…

One more Malagasy note I liked was the 5000 ariary, on which you’ll find a calming picture of a DHOW floating on the tranquil waters off Madagascar’s coastline…

THALER n. /TAH.lur/ an old coin with variants used throughout Europe for several centuries

Let’s start our little story with Jáchymov, a town in the Czech Republic, in a valley near its border with Germany. The town used to be called Sankt Joachimsthal, which translates literally as ‘Saint Joachim’s Valley’ (in Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, among some others, Saint Joachim is considered to be the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus).

When silver was discovered in this town in the 1500s, a mint was set up and used to create silver coins, which they called Joachimsthalers. Eventually, the ‘Joachims’ bit was chopped off, and thaler was born. Apparently, a German spelling reform centuries later led to the variant TALER, although us English types ignored this mandate.

The thaler was so widely disseminated and popular that its name influenced that of many subsequent currencies, including the TOLAR (/TOLL.ar/), a Slovenian currency from 1991 until (like so many other Scrabbly coins) it was replaced by the Euro in 2007. The tolar was divided into a smaller unit called the STOTIN (with 100 stotins to the tolar). If you have five or more of these fellows, I bet you can’t guess what you call them…

Yup, that’s right. TOLARJEV. That will be one million points thanks grandma!

Now, the more observant among you may have twigged onto something interesting: tolar sounds a bit like dollar. And that’s because they both originate from today’s word! Linguists call pairs like tolar and dollar COGNATES. But that’s another story altogether.

DENARIUS /din.AIR.ee.us or din.AR.ee.us/ n. an ancient Roman coin pl. DENARII

The word denarius comes to us from the Latin phrase ‘denarius nummus’ which literally means ‘coin worth ten asses’. And so it was too. But not the kind of asses you’re thinking of! And not the other kind either. Asses here refers to the plural of an AS, which was the name of a small copper coin, also used by Romans at the time.

The denarius is the direct antecedent of the penny, which replaced it in the early 8th century. Ever wondered why the penny is represented by the symbol ‘d’, even though it starts with a ‘p’? Well, now you know ;-)

Once the penny hit the scene, it seems everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using penny-sounding names for the coin that formed their basic unit of currency. In addition to the Germans and Danzigonians (?) who introduced the PFENNIG you met yesterday, for example, the Finnish brought in the PENNI (pl. -S or -A). There were others too, but I’m not allowed to talk about them in front of Scrabble players.

Speaking of Scrabble, both denarius and denarii (its plural) are high-probability bonus words, so you really should take a moment or two to learn them, if you haven’t already. If you’re wondering how you would ever spot DENARIUS from a scrambled rack, just remember that it is an anagram of the much easier-to-find UNRAISED. It is also an anagram of URANIDES (certain radioactive elements), but that’s probably just as tricky to spot.

To the best of my knowledge, today’s word has never appeared in a major American newspaper crossword puzzle, but if you’ve spotted it in one I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

P.S. Collins/CSW/SOWPODS players might also be interested to meet the ANTONINIANUS, a coin which was brought in to replace the denarius and was valued at 2 denarii…