sycee
Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- noun An ingot of silver, shaped like a shoe, once used as currency in China.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun Properly, an epithet meaning ‘pure,’ applied to the uncoined lumps of silver used by the Chinese as money, but frequently used by itself, in the sense of ‘fine (uncoined) silver.’
Examples
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Chinese lump silver, called sycee (fine silk), is made into ingots resembling in shape a shoe.
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At Kiukiang, where the vessel stopped, the lowdah and his men went ashore after receiving the gold dust and sycee shoes as their share of the plunder, while Wang, taking the junk and cargo as his portion, shipped a fresh crew and sailed on to Hankow, where he set up in business with the proceeds of his ill-gotten gains.
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The Mexican, or chop dollar, becomes sadly depreciated after long circulation, by the clippings and innumerable marks put upon it, so that it will not pass outside of China, nor does it long remain out of the pot of the sycee melter.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy
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His many tens of thousands of sycee are supposed to weigh more than youth and love.
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The Bourgeois Philibert had exported largely to China the newly discovered ginseng, for which at first the people of the flowery kingdom paid, in their sycee silver, ounce for ounce.
Note
The word 'sycee' is said to be from a Chinese word for fine silk, because if pure the silver may be drawn out into fine threads.
