Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1880 — The Derivation of the Word Money. [ARTICLE]

The Derivation of the Word Money.

The derivations of the words relating to money and commerce are interesting and instructive. “Pecuniary ” takes us back to the times when values were reckoned by so many heai of cattle. The word “money” is from moueta, because in Rome coins were first regularly struck in the temple of Juno Moneta, which again was derived from monere, to warn, because it was built on the spot where Manlius heard the Hauls approaching to the attack on the city. “Coin” is probably from the Latin cuneus. a die or stamp. Mny coins are merely so called from their weight, as, for instance, our pound, the French livre, and the Italian lira; others from the metal, as the “ aurens the “rupee” from the Sanslyrit “rupyra,” silver; others from the design, as the angel, the testoon, from teste or tete, a head J others from the head of the state, as the sovereign, crown; others from the proper name of the monach, such as the daric, from Darius, the Philip, Louis d’or, or the Napoleon. The dollar, or thaler, is short for the Joachimßtaler, or money of the Joachims valley, in Bohemia, where these coins were first struck in the-sixteenth oentury. Guineas were called after the country from which the gold was obtained, and the “ franc ”is an abbreviation of the inscription Francorum Rex. The “ sou ” is from the Latin solidus. The word shilling seems to be derived from a root signifying to divide; and in several cases the name indicates the fraction of some larger coin, as the denarius, half-penny, farthing, cent and mill. The pound was originally not a coin, but a weight, and comes from the Latin pondus. Our pound originally was a pound of silver, which was divided into 240 pennies. The oricrin of the word penny is unknown. Some have derived it from pendo, to weigh; but tljis does not seem very satisfactory. Our word “ sterling ” is said to go back to the lime of the conquest, but the derivation has been much disputed. Some have supposed that it was first attributed to coins struck at Stirling, but for this there is not the slightest evidence; others, that the name was derived from coins having a star on the obverse, but no coins which could have given rise to such a name are known. The most probable suggestion is that it lias reference to the Easterling or North German merchants. —English magazine.