peso

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish peso (“weight”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which in Spanish meant a weight from 962, a measure of weight for coins from 1061, a gold coin from 1526 and a coin worth eight reales from 1681.^[2] The Spanish word is from Latin pēnsum (“something weighed”),^[4][7][6][8] the noun use of the neuter past participle of pendō (“to hang; to weigh; to pay”),^{[4][3][7][8][9]} from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pen- (“to draw, stretch, spin”).^[3][4] Etymonline calls the Latin noun Medieval Latin, the OED classical Latin.^[3][2] French borrowed the word as French peso, recorded from 1598.^[2] The diminutive peseta is from the same Spanish word,^[8][2] and the Latin verb also gave poise and pensive.^[5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Any of various gold or silver coins of the Spanish territories: 1555, in Eden's translation of Peter Martyr's Decades of the Newe Worlde, "Those pieces of golde which they caule Pesos or golden Castellans".^[2][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1550s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The first pesos known in English were the gold peso de oro and the silver peso de plata, coins current in Spanish lands from the 16th to the 19th century.^[2] The silver peso of eight reales was the Spanish dollar, also called the piece of eight.^[5][10][3] After independence the name passed to the money of several Spanish-American republics and of the Philippines, where it became the basic unit of currency, and later to banknotes of that value.^[2][11] In 16th- and 17th-century English it was also spelled peaso and pezo.^[2] In American slang, from 1908, a peso is a dollar.^[12]

Timeline

• 1555 – a Spanish gold or silver coin.^[2][5]
• 16th century – the spelling peaso.^[2]
• 1908 – in American slang, a dollar.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The basic monetary unit of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Uruguay and the Philippines, divided into 100 centavos (in Uruguay, centésimos).^[10][5][2]
2. A coin or banknote worth one peso: He paid with a crumpled fifty-peso note.^[5][2]
3. (historical) A former silver coin of Spain and Spanish America worth eight reales; the Spanish dollar or piece of eight.^[5][10][2]
4. (US slang) A dollar.^[12]

Related words

• poise
• pansy
• pensive
• avoirdupois
• peseta
• pendant
• pound

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com