Word.ws English Dictionary

obolos

obolos is the alternative form of obolus.

Meaning of obolus

Noun

obolus (plural oboli or oboluses)

  1. (Ancient Greece) A silver coin minted in Ancient Greece, valued at a sixth of a drachma.
    • I remember one of these who, having received a pretty large sum of money, gave me, when I begged an obolus, a whole talent; on which his friend having reproved him, he answered, with an oath, ‘Why not? Have I not fifty left?’1749, Henry Fielding, A Journey from This World to the Next
  2. (historical) A unit of weight, equal to one-sixth of a drachma.
    • Dav. […] And after that I met the boy of Chremes
      With fishes, and an obolus of herbs.1870, John Benson Coles Rose, transl., Andria, translation of original by Publius Terentius Afer, Act II, scene 2, page 21

Forms of obolos

pluraloboloi

Origin of obolos

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ὀβολός (obolós).

Questions about obolos

What is obolos the alternative form of?
Obolos is the alternative form of obolus.

Words near obolos in the dictionary

  1. obolized
  2. obolizes
  3. obolizing
  4. obolo
  5. oboloi
  6. obolos
  7. obols
  8. obolus
  9. oboluses
  10. Obomber
  11. obomegoid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: obolos (page history and authors); obolus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “obolos.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/obolos. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.