peso

The word peso is mainly used in English to mean a unit of money in several countries, most of them in Latin America, and also in the Philippines. You may see it in travel writing, business news, exchange-rate tables, or everyday talk about prices abroad. For example, someone might say they changed dollars into pesos before a trip to Mexico, or that the Argentine peso rose or fell against another currency.

The name comes from Spanish, where it originally had the sense of "weight." Long ago, it was connected with the weight of silver used in trade, and that history helps explain why the same name became a currency. In modern English, however, the main meaning is the currency itself, not a general unit of mass or physical weight.

Different countries have their own peso, so the exact value depends on the place being discussed. Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the Philippines all use currencies called peso. Most of the time, when English speakers use the word, they simply mean the local money of one of these countries.