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What is "piece of eight"

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Piece of eight

Piece \Piece\, n. [OE. pece, F. pi[`e]ce, LL. pecia, petia, petium, probably of Celtic origin; cf. W. peth a thing, a part, portion, a little, Armor. pez, Gael. & Ir. cuid part, share. Cf. Petty.]

  1. A fragment or part of anything separated from the whole, in any manner, as by cutting, splitting, breaking, or tearing; a part; a portion; as, a piece of sugar; to break in pieces.

    Bring it out piece by piece.
    --Ezek. xxiv. 6.

  2. A definite portion or quantity, as of goods or work; as, a piece of broadcloth; a piece of wall paper.

  3. Any one thing conceived of as apart from other things of the same kind; an individual article; a distinct single effort of a series; a definite performance; especially:

    1. A literary or artistic composition; as, a piece of poetry, music, or statuary.

    2. A musket, gun, or cannon; as, a battery of six pieces; a following piece.

    3. A coin; as, a sixpenny piece; -- formerly applied specifically to an English gold coin worth 22 shillings.

    4. A fact; an item; as, a piece of news; a piece of knowledge.

  4. An individual; -- applied to a person as being of a certain nature or quality; often, but not always, used slightingly or in contempt. ``If I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him.''
    --Sir P. Sidney.

    Thy mother was a piece of virtue.
    --Shak.

    His own spirit is as unsettled a piece as there is in all the world.
    --Coleridge.

  5. (Chess) One of the superior men, distinguished from a pawn.

  6. A castle; a fortified building. [Obs.]
    --Spenser.

    Of a piece, of the same sort, as if taken from the same whole; like; -- sometimes followed by with.
    --Dryden.

    Piece of eight, the Spanish piaster, formerly divided into eight reals.

    To give a piece of one's mind to, to speak plainly, bluntly, or severely to (another).
    --Thackeray.

    Piece broker, one who buys shreds and remnants of cloth to sell again.

    Piece goods, goods usually sold by pieces or fixed portions, as shirtings, calicoes, sheetings, and the like.

Wiktionary
piece of eight

n. (context historical English) peso, a silver coin, that was minted in Spain from the end of 15th century, equal to eight reales (hence the name).

WordNet
piece of eight

n. an old silver Spanish coin; worth 8 reales

Usage examples of "piece of eight".

They were moving out of the city of painted buildings and into a different New Orleans, the faded houses and shacks of the persecuted French, and then beyond them into the huts of the free blacks and masterless slaves-a world of cheap and desperate whores, of men who could be hired to kill for a piece of eight, and of practitioners of dark African magics that put bits of living bodies into flames in order to command nature to break her own laws.