Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several ancient units of weight, especially a Hebrew unit equal to about a half ounce.
  • noun A gold or silver coin equal in weight to one of these units, especially the chief silver coin of the ancient Hebrews.
  • noun A coin.
  • noun Money.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A unit of weight first used in Babylonia, and there equal to one sixtieth part of a mina.
  • noun The chief silver coin of the Jews, probably first coined in 141 b. c. by Simon Maccabæus.
  • noun plural Coins; coin; money.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An ancient weight and coin used by the Jews and by other nations of the same stock.
  • noun A jocose term for money.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A currency unit of both ancient and modern Israel.
  • noun informal money.
  • noun An ancient unit of weight equivalent to one-fiftieth of a mina.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the basic unit of money in Israel

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Hebrew šeqel, from šāqal, to weigh; see ṯql in Semitic roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Akkadian šiqlu via Hebrew שקל (sheqel), from שקל (shaqal, "to weigh").

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Examples

  • So the fact that sometimes the shekel is strengthening because the dollar is weakening globally doesn't cut a lot of ice with most Israelis.

    Interview Transcript: Stanley Fischer 2010

  • So the fact that the shekel is weakening against the euro relative to our exporters is also very important and could be even more important than the dollar.

    Interview Transcript: Stanley Fischer 2010

  • It may be at the same time that the shekel is weakening against the euro and we actually trade more with Europe than we do with the United States.

    Interview Transcript: Stanley Fischer 2010

  • The shekel is here settled (v. 13); it is twenty jerahs, just half a Roman ounce, in our money 2s. 4 1/4d. and almost the eighth part of a farthing, as the aforesaid learned man exactly computes it.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721

  • The whole sum, if in shekel weight, did not exceed - L-3. they brought Joseph into Egypt -- There were two routes to Egypt: the one was overland by Hebron, where Jacob dwelt, and by taking which, the fate of his hapless son would likely have reached the paternal ears; the other was directly westward across the country from Dothan to the maritime coast, and in this, the safest and most expeditious way, the merchants carried Joseph to Egypt.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • Zionist program and pay the annual contribution, known as a shekel, varying from 15 cents to 25 cents in different countries.

    The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 Various

  • The shekel was the common standard of weight and value among the Hebrews down to the time of the

    Easton's Bible Dictionary M.G. Easton 1897

  • The shekel was the top performer last week among 10 emerging markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa tracked by Bloomberg.

    BusinessWeek.com -- Top News 2011

  • The shekel is the fourth- worst performer among major currencies tracked by Bloomberg in Europe, the Middle East and Africa this quarter, after Turkey's lira, Hungary's forint and the Polish zloty.

    BusinessWeek.com -- Top News 2011

  • It was called shekel, for we were counted in pairs.

    Chabad.org Weekly Magazine [ Passover 5770 - March 29, 2010 ] 2010

Comments

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  • Ta, mollusque.

    June 17, 2008

  • "When I asked why, he said that the anarchist lot thought it would give them their chance. Everything would be in the melting-pot, and they looked to see a new world emerge. The capitalists would rake in the shekels, and make fortunes by buying up wreckage. Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland."

    - John Buchan, 'The Thirty-Nine Steps'.

    August 27, 2009