Definition of "cowry" []

• Variant of cowrie. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Hence, the devaluation of the cowry was a logical result."
• "The idea that the cowry was the giver of life and the parent of men was also transferred to crude stone imitations of the shell."
• "In 1411, Sien, the native chieftain of Xichidian, asked to use silver to pay taxes of 79,800 suo of cowries that had to be purchased from Lin'an. 61 Since cowries circulated in large numbers, a kind of cowry bank (bahang) emerged."