euro
Pluraleuros, euro
- 1The official currency of the European Monetary Union, used across many European countries, with the symbol €.
The euro replaced the franc and the mark for everyday transactions.
Tourists often carry a few hundred euros in cash when traveling the continent.
SimilarEUR
Note
This name was chosen through a public contest rather than inherited. Strictly speaking it is a new coinage, though it plainly echoes Europe, which goes back through Latin Europa to Greek Eurṓpē. The usual plural is euros, but the unchanging plural also occurs (ten euro). In banking and price lists the three-letter EUR stands in for the word, alongside the symbol €.
- 2A coin having a face value of one euro.
The vending machine accepts only a euro, not the smaller coins.
He stacked his euros neatly beside the register before counting them.
- 3Abbreviation of European.
The newspaper covered the Euro-American summit in considerable detail.
Their company expanded into Euro-Asian markets last year.
Note
Here European is clipped to a modifier that sits in front of another noun: euro size, a euro style pad. Written lowercase and open, it borrows whatever meaning the context gives European, from the continent to the European Union. It can even carry the financial sense of an option exercisable only at expiry. The capitalized, hyphenated Euro- does the same work inside compounds.
- 4A wallaroo (Macropus robustus), a stocky macropod native to the rocky hill country of Australia.
The euro grazes at night and shelters among rocks during the heat of the day.
Euros are well adapted to the arid hills of inland Australia.
Similarwallaroo
Note
An unrelated word that happens to share the spelling. It comes from the Aboriginal language Adnyamathanha, where the animal is yuru or thuru, and it owes nothing to Europe or to the currency. In writing about Australian wildlife the context settles which euro is meant, and the plural is euros either way.
Practice
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Origins
The name "euro" was the winning entry in a public contest to name the new European currency, so it is technically a neologism, though it clearly alludes to the name of the continent Europe, from Latin Europa, from Ancient Greek Εὐρώπη (Eurṓpē), the name of a princess in Greek mythology. According to the official story, it was coined by Belgian teacher and esperantist Germain Pirlot in 1995.
From Adnyamathanha yuru, thuru.