▪ I. ‖ pice
(paɪs)
Also 7 pise, peise, peyse, 8 pyce, 9 pyse.
[ad. Hindī paisā (in all the Gauḍian langs.), a copper coin, the fourth part of an ānā: supposed by some to be a deriv. of pā{p}i or pa{p}ī:—Skr. pad, padī, quarter. See also pie n.5]
A small East Indian copper coin equal in value to one-fourth of an anna.
| 1615 W. Peyton in Purchas Pilgrims I. 530 Pice, which is a Copper Coyne; twelve drammes make one Pice. 1616 Terry ibid. II. 1471 Brasse money, which they call Pices, whereof three or thereabouts counteruaile a Peny. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 205 The Company's Accounts are kept in Book-rate Pice,..80 Pice to the Rupee. c 1813 Mrs. Sherwood Stories Ch. Catech. xv. 125 Every pice that I could lay hold of went for liquor. 1862 Beveridge Hist. India II. iv. ii. 76 If by so doing they can gain a few pice. |
Hence ˈpiceworth, as much as a pice purchases.
| 1832 Morton Bengali & Sanscrit Prov. 127 A thousand crows crowding about a pice-worth of sauce. 1904 Nineteenth Cent. Aug. 289 A piceworth of your horse's grain. |
▪ II. pice
see also paisa.