dirhem | dirham, n.
Forms:
Also derham.(Show Less)
Etymology: < Arabic dirham, dirhim, < Latin drachma , Greek δραχμή : see drachm n. Formerly in Italian diremo.
Previous versions of the OED give the stress as: diˈrhem.
An Arabic measure of weight, originally two-thirds of an Attic drachma (44·4 grains troy), used with varying weight from Morocco to Ethiopia, Turkey, and Iran; in Egypt (1895) = 47·661 troy grains. Also: a small silver coin of the same weight, used under the caliphs, and (1895) in Morocco, where its value was less than 4d. English.
1788 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall V. lii. 397 note
Elmacin..compared the weight of the best or common gold dinar, to the drachm or dirhem of Egypt.
1850 W. Irving Mahomet
(1853)
xxxix. 199
Omar Ibn Al Hareth declares that Mahomet, at his death, did not leave a golden dinar nor a silver dirhem.
1872 E. W. Robertson Hist. Ess. 3
In Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Barbary and Arabia, the Dirhem, as a standard of weight, continues at the present day to be divided into 16 killos, or carats, and 64 grains.
1872 E. W. Robertson Hist. Ess. 48
(note)
The drachma of Constantinople..the original of the Egyptian dirhem.
1885 R. F. Burton tr. Arabian Nights' Entertainm.
(1887)
III. 36
I now adjudge him the sum of ten thousand dirhams.
1970 New Yorker 29 Aug. 48/2
There were ten dirhams in her pocket.
1971 Ashmolean Mus. Rep. Visitors 1970 43
The purchase of a group of silver dirhams of the ‘Arab-Sasanian’ type.
1788—1971(Hide quotations)
