Currency

How to spell currency

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce currency

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does currency mean?

1. nounThe system of money in general use in a particular country or region.
2. nounThe state of being widely accepted, used, or in circulation as an idea.

Currency in a sentence

• The bank charges a fee whenever you exchange one currency for another.

• The theory gained currency among researchers after the new data appeared.

• The euro became the official currency of several European nations.

• That old rumour has lost all currency in the office.

Where does currency come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb currere, meaning 'to run' or 'to flow', the same root that gives English 'current', 'course', and 'occur'. From the idea of something running or flowing came the sense of money 'in circulation', passing from hand to hand as it flows through an economy. The noun 'currency' itself was coined in English in the seventeenth century, with the philosopher John Locke among the early users, originally meaning the condition of flowing or circulating freely. It soon settled into its now-dominant sense of the money actually in use in a particular country, while keeping a related sense of being widely current or accepted. The spelling trap lives in those two unstressed parts: the doubled r inherited from currere, and the -ency ending that learners often confuse with -ancy.

How the word is built

• curr- (from Latin currere: to run, to flow)
• -ency (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)