solidus

[prettygoodword]

solidus (pl. solidi) - n., a Roman gold coin used until the 15th century, also called a bezant; a forward slash.


Though it's actually a bit more complicated than that. Roman here actually means Byzantine -- the coin was introduced by Constantine the Great and was used till the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and as such known through Europe. For much of that time, the only common coin was the silver penny, of which 12 made a solidus. In Britain, the symbol for this was s (for solidus and later shilling), written as ∫ (the long s), often abbreviated to a slash, called among other things a shilling mark and, still, solidus. Typographers make a distinction between the forward slash on a keyboard ( / ) (also called a virgule) and the solidus ( ⁄ ), and use the latter mainly for the slanted line in fractions and dates, but in common use the distinction is blurred. (The other main meaning of solidus, from chemistry, is a separate word, which I ignore for now.)

Pronounced SOHL-i-duhs. From Latin, short for solidus nummus, solid coin. 'Cause, yanno, solid gold.

---L.

Comments

[taigerchily.livejournal.com]

in german there is the word "sold" = pay (mostly of soldiers), also a word that comes originaly from "solidus".

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Innnteresting. I wonder what other European languages have descendants of solidus.

(Shilling of course comes from deep Germanic roots, the same origin as Schilling.)

---L.