shekel
- 1A unit of currency used in both ancient Israel and the modern Israeli state.
The merchant priced each scarf at forty shekels.
He kept a single shekel as a souvenir from his trip to Jerusalem.
Note
A name that began on the scales: Hebrew shékel comes from shakál, "to weigh," and reaches back to Akkadian šiqlum. When David pays fifty shekels of silver in the King James Bible, the phrase still carries that sense of metal measured out, which is why the ancient unit of weight shares the name. English uses two plurals: its own shekels and the Hebrew shekalim.
- 2Money in general, treated casually.
They're making serious shekels off that app.
Every shekel counts when you're saving for a house.
Note
Slang that turns a biblical coin into a joke about cash. In The Judge (1914), shekels stands beside beans as a playful word for money spent on furs and hats. It is usually plural and vague about amounts, as in a good few shekels or a shekel or two. It suits banter far better than serious talk about finances.
- 3A unit of weight in ancient times, equal to one-fiftieth of a mina.
The contract recorded a debt of thirty shekels of silver.
And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold;
1769, Benjamin Blayney (Ed.), King James Bible (Genesis 24:22)Note
Here the word keeps the meaning its root names; the currency sense tells that story. The King James Bible describes an earring "of half a shekel weight" and bracelets "of ten shekels weight of gold." In those phrases the shekel is the measure and the metal follows it. Treat it as a historical term that belongs in writing on ancient trade and scripture, not modern measurement.
Practice
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Origin
From Hebrew שֶׁקֶל (shékel), derived from שָׁקַל (shakál, "to weigh"), which in turn traces back to Akkadian šiqlum.