half joe

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English

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Noun

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half joe (plural half joes)

  1. (chiefly Canada, US, now historical) A Portuguese gold coin, worth 3,200 reis, formerly current in North America.
    • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 59:
      [M]y father's draft [] was paid in the Portuguese coin of half-Joes, or six-and-thirty shilling pieces, at that time made current in Great Britain.