dirham
Pluraldirhams
- 1The currency of Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, and the name of monetary units used elsewhere in the Arab world.
Hotel rates in Marrakesh are usually listed in dirhams rather than euros.
The dirham held steady against the dollar through most of the year.
Note
A coin name with a long road behind it: Arabic dirham, ultimately from the Greek drachma. That makes it a doublet of dram and drachma, the same word reaching English by different routes. For a numismatist it covers the modern Moroccan and Emirati units and the wider Arab-world currencies that carry the name. It takes a regular plural, dirhams, as in prices listed in dirhams.
- 2Alternative form of dirhem.
The old Ottoman recipe calls for a dirham of ground mastic dissolved in rose water.
Apothecaries in Istanbul once sold rare medicines by the dirham.
Note
Here the spelling crosses over. Dirhem is the main form for the old Turkish weight, and dirham borrows it. The two are tied closely, because the silver coin behind the currency meaning was reckoned as weighing one dirhem. The weight itself was never fixed and was reckoned anywhere from about 1.5 to 3.5 grams. A dirham in an old recipe is a small measure, not a precise one.
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Origin
Borrowed from Arabic دِرْهَم (dirham), which ultimately goes back to Ancient Greek δραχμή (drakhmḗ). It is a doublet of dram, drachma, diram, dirhem, and adarme.