Currencies

How to spell currencies

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce currencies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does currencies mean?

1. nounThe systems of money used in different countries or regions, considered as more than one.

Currencies in a sentence

• The bank lets travellers exchange several currencies at the airport desk.

• Global investors track how various currencies rise and fall against the dollar.

Where does currencies come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb currere, which literally meant 'to run' or 'to flow', the same root that gives us 'current', 'course', and 'corridor'. In medieval and early modern English, 'currency' first described the quality of something flowing or circulating freely, and by the seventeenth century it was applied to money that 'runs' through an economy and passes from hand to hand. The idea is that valid money is literally in circulation, flowing through trade, which is why the same root sits behind a river's 'current'. The plural form, 'currencies', emerged naturally as international trade required talking about many separate national monies at once. The spelling trap lives in the ending: because the singular ends in a consonant plus -y, the plural changes that -y to -ies, giving 'currencies' rather than the tempting but wrong 'currencys'.

How the word is built

• curr- (from Latin currere: to run or flow)
• -ency (state or condition)
• -ies (plural of words ending in -y)