shekel

• sheqel

From Hebrew שֶׁקֶל (shékel, “shekel”), from שָׁקַל (shakál, “to weigh”), from Akkadian 𒂅 (šiqlum).

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɛkəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛkəl
• Hyphenation: shek‧el

shekel (plural shekels or shekalim)

1. A currency unit of both ancient and modern Israel.
   • 1769, Benjamin Blayney (Ed.), King James Bible (2 Samuel 24:24)

     So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     "Beauty is naught to him, because there are lips more honey-sweet; and wealth is naught, because others can weigh him down with heavier shekels; and fame is naught, because there have been greater men than he."

2. (slang) Money.
   • 1914, The Judge, volume 66:

     Her gownlet cost five hundred beans; / Her furs, four figures in a row; / Her hat removed from papa's jeans / A hundred shekels more or so.

   • 1924, James Alban Wilson, Sport and Service in Assam and Elsewhere, page 288:

     […] after the 1887-9 campaign was the great refuge of the destitute who, as they could not hope to rake in a breast-full of medals and decorations, expected, at any rate, to amass a good few shekels.

   • 2018, Gerry Woodhouse, Lord Damnus: Conqueror of the World:

     The mob had filched anything that might earn them a shekel or two.

3. (historical) An ancient unit of weight equivalent to one-fiftieth of a mina.
   • 1769, Benjamin Blayney (Ed.), King James Bible (Genesis 24:22)

     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;

• new shekel

• agora
• ILS
• NIS

• shekel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• shékel (post-1990 spelling)

From Hebrew שֶׁקֶל (shékel, “shekel”), from שָׁקַל (shakál, “to weigh”).

• IPA^(key): /ʃe.kɛl/

• Audio:

  (file)

shekel m (plural shekels)

1. shekel (unit of currency)

shekel m (plural shekels)

1. sheqel (currency unit in Israel)