shekel

Noun

shekel (plural shekels or shekel or shekalim)

1. A currency unit of both ancient and modern Israel.
   • So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.1769, Benjamin Blayney (Ed.), King James Bible (2 Samuel 24:24)
   • "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."1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
2. (slang) Money.
   • 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.1914, The Judge, volume 66
   • […] 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.1924, James Alban Wilson, Sport and Service in Assam and Elsewhere, page 288
3. (historical) An ancient unit of weight equivalent to one-fiftieth of a mina.
   • 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)