half joe

English

Noun

half joe (plural half joes)

1. (chiefly Canada, US, now historical) A Portuguese gold coin, worth 3,200 reis, formerly current in North America.
   • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 59:

     [M]y father's draft […] was paid in the Portuguese coin of half-Joes, or six-and-thirty shilling pieces, at that time made current in Great Britain.