A picayune was a Spanish

coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

, worth half a real or one sixteenth of a

dollar Dollar is the name of more than 25 currencies. The United States dollar, named after the international currency known as the Spanish dollar, was established in 1792 and is the first so named that still survives. Others include the Australian d ...

. Its name derives from the French ''picaillon'', which is itself from the Provençal ''picaioun'', the name of an unrelated small copper coin from

Savoy Savoy (; )  is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Vall ...

. By extension, picayune can mean "trivial" or "of little value". Aside from being used in Spanish territories, the picayune and other Spanish currency was used throughout the colonial United States.

Spanish dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content fine silver. It w ...

s were made

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment in court for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything ...

in the U.S. by an act on February 9, 1793. They remained so until demonetization on February 21, 1857. The coin's name first appeared in

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

and

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

, where its value was nominally one sixteenth of a

, i.e. cents, and whose name was sometimes used in place of the U.S. nickel."Picayune"
Probert Encyclopedia
Retrieved on April 10, 2008."Picayune"

Retrieved on April 8, 2008. A newspaper published in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

since the 1830s, the ''

Times-Picayune ''The Times-Picayune , The New Orleans Advocate'' (commonly called ''The Times-Picayune'' or the ''T-P'') is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ancestral publications of other names date back to January 25, 1837. The cu ...

'' (originally ''The Picayune''), was named after the coin. A city in southern

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

has the name Picayune.

References

External links

Coins of Spain {{coin-stub