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In the mountains of Bohemia is the small town of Jáchymov. In the early 16th century, the town was known by its German name, Sankt Joachimstal. At that time, a silver mine was opened nearby, and coins were minted to which the name joachimstaler was applied. In German this was shortened to Taler. Shortly afterward the Dutch or Low German form daler was borrowed into English to refer to the Taler and other coins that were patterned after it, such as the Spanish peso, which circulated widely in Britain’s North American colonies. Our modern word dollar is a different spelling of this daler. When the newly independent American colonies settled on an official monetary unit in 1785, they chose the name dollar.
Examples of dollar in a Sentence
Stephanie Yang, CNN Money, 4 Feb. 2026
In 2010, Barack Obama presented the replacement for SORT, New START, to the Senate, where GOP hawks blocked it until Obama agreed to spend tens of billions of dollars for future nuclear-modernization programs—in effect a shakedown for the nuclear-weapons industry in exchange for ratification.
—Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 3 Feb. 2026
But much of that vision relies on collaboration, a seemingly paradoxical value in a system where survival means competing for a bigger slice of the pie, whether its students, political influence or state and local dollars.
—Marissa Meador, IndyStar, 3 Feb. 2026
The executive director and employees used hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants in ways that a top city official says undermined the anti-violence mission and should never have been allowed, according to a Washington Post investigation.
—Jenny Gathright, Washington Post, 3 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Dollar.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dollar. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
dollar
noun
from Dutch daler "silver coin formerly used in Germany," from German Taler (same meaning), shortened from Joachimstaler "a coin made in Sankt Joachimsthal (Saint Joachim's Valley) in Bohemia (a former kingdom in Europe)"
