# peso

Pronunciation: say "PAY-soh" US /ˈpeɪsoʊ/, UK /ˈpeɪsəʊ/

## Noun

1. The standard currency of several Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas (including Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay) as well as the Philippines.
   - Simple: The money used every day in Mexico and several other Latin American countries and in the Philippines.
   - _The Mexican peso strengthened against the dollar after the central bank's announcement._
   - _Tourists lined up at the airport counter to exchange their euros for Argentine pesos._
2. A former unit of currency in Spain and its colonies, equal to eight reales and also known as the Spanish dollar.
   - Simple: An old Spanish coin worth eight smaller coins, used long ago in Spain and the lands it ruled.
   - _Colonial traders in Manila priced Chinese silk by the peso throughout the seventeenth century._
   - _The ship's ledger recorded a cargo of silver worth ten thousand pesos._

## Origin

Borrowed from Spanish "peso."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/peso (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).