Definition of "teston" []

• A 16th-century French silver coin. (noun)
• An English coin stamped with the image of Henry VIII's head. In this sense, also called tester3. (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.

• "As we entered their den, said a common mumper, to whom we had given half a teston, Worshipful culprits, God send you a good deliverance!"
• "And when he changed a teston, cardecu, or any other piece of money, the changer had been more subtle than a fox if Panurge had not at every time made five or six sols (that is, some six or seven pence,) vanish away invisibly, openly, and manifestly, without making any hurt or lesion, whereof the changer should have felt nothing but the wind."
• "This art is so far advanced in Paris that there are tavernkeepers who will give you something to eat at their places for all prices, for a teston, for an écu, for four, for ten, even for twenty apiece if you wish it, but for twenty écus I hope they will give you manna en potage or roast phoenix, or whatever in the world is most precious.13"