peso

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The dollar sign actually stands for the peso
Chilean peso coin (1933)

Peso (Spanish: "weight") denotes or denotes various currencies of several former Spanish colonies . The dollar sign $ originally stood for the Spanish-Mexican peso and was only used later for the US dollar . It is used today as the universal currency symbol for all currencies known as dollars or pesos. An exception is the Philippine peso , which has ₱ as a currency symbol.

Currencies

In addition, the following supranational organizations use a peso as a unit of account :

Furthermore, the peso (divided into 100 centavos ) was the official currency:

Spain

The country of Spain itself had had the similar-sounding currency peseta since 1869 until the introduction of the euro as book money in 1999 and cash in 2002. Before that, there were in Spain: Obolo (13th century), Maravedí (from 15th century) and the parallel den Real (from 18th century), before the peseta (probably from "small piece") appeared in 1869.

See also