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Lexicographers Agree That the Term is a Corruption of the Name of a Bohemian Silver Mine Which Supplied the First "Thalers."
WE Americans commonly regard the word "dollar" as peculiarly and wholly our own. It seems in some psychic way to be a part of our very life, and our patriotism is stirred when we think of any other nation laying claim to it. Yet it is not all ours, or at least it did not begin with us, but came from far-off Bohemia.
The derivation of the word "dollar," suggested in Todd's edition of Johnson (Johnson's English Dictionary, as Improved by Todd), is confirmed by the particular explanation of later lexicographers.
In 1516 a silver mine was discovered at Joachim's Thal (St. Joachim's Dale), in Bohemia, and the proprietors in the following year issued a great number of silver pieces, of about the value of the Spanish psoduro, which bore the name of Joachimsthaler, subsequently abbreviated into dollar.
Thus the dollar, like the guinea, commemorates the place from which it was originally coined.
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