Pl. ǁ lire, rarely liras. Also 7 in anglicized form lire. [It. lira, a contracted form of L. lībra pound: see LIBRA.] The name of an Italian silver coin which is the unit of monetary value in that country.
It is now divided into 100 centesimi, and equivalent in value to the French franc.
1617. Moryson, Itin., I. 70. I bought … a fat hen for two lires.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), IV. 118. A bracera … may be hired from Venice to Trieste for fifty or sixty lire. Note, A lira is about 6d. sterling.
1868. Browning, Ring & Bk., I. 39. I found this book, Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just.
1877. L. W. M. Lockhart, Mine is Thine, iv. The money went to the marchioness … who may have fed the hungry and clothed the naked with the lire of the angry man.
1884. F. Boyle, On the Borderland, 237. A baksheesh of two liras.
