rix-dollar

Noun

rix-dollar (plural rix-dollars)

1. (historical) A silver coin and money of account in use from the late-16ᵗʰ to the mid-19ᵗʰ centuries in the European Teutonic countries and their imperial trading networks.
   • At all other times they would receive the regular salary of thirty rix-dollars monthly.1803, [Author Unknown], Medical Journal — Volume IX, page 539
   • He sent for the celebrated necromancer who lived at the sign of the Goatskin and whose familiar spirit so plagued the thief that he returned the stolen goods to their rightful owner, for which the sorcerer was paid ten rix-dollars.1999, Mike Mitchell, translating HJC von Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus, V.6, Dedalus 2016, p. 373
2. (historical) A unit of currency introduced into certain former European colonies such as Cape Province and Ceylon.
   • Such had the business become before Lord Somerset left, that in 1821 no less than 196 horses were shipped mostly to India, for military remounts by cavalry officers. The declared value was 56,980 rix dollars, which the then currency represented, an average of about £20 per head, or a total of...1902 February 28, “The Horse in South Africa”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 26, page 828
   • The Dutch monetary system of a rix-dollar or rijksdaalder of 48 stuiver was continued [in Cape Province] by the British in the early nineteenth century.1962, Robert Andrew Glendinning Carson, Coins: ancient, mediaeval & modern, page 533