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Cowrie   Listen
noun
Cowrie  n.  (Bot.) Same as Kauri.



Cowry, Cowrie  n.  (pl. cowries)  (Zool.) A marine shell of the genus Cypraea. Note: There are numerous species, many of them ornamental. Formerly Cypraea moneta and several other species were largely used as money in Africa and some other countries, and they are still so used to some extent. The value is always trifling, and varies at different places.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cowrie" Quotes from Famous Books



... As things stood there was no way of instituting a more extended search. The police could be of no assistance, overwhelmed with their labors; individuals who might have helped were lost in the melee; money was as useless as strings of cowrie shells. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... the prahayries, there is abundans of wild game in Boston, such as quails, snipes, plover, ans Props. (The game of "props," played with cowrie shells is, I believe, peculiar to ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... (Phud) was amusing the people: he put on a black mask with cowrie shells for eyes, and danced uncouth figures with a kind of heel and toe shuffle, in excellent time, to rude Tibetan songs of his own: for this he received ample alms, which a little boy collected in a wallet. These vagrants live well upon charity; ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... received, because he brought much wealth with him. His old associates flocked around him rejoicing; and he fell into the same courses which had beggared him before. Gambling and debauchery soon blunted his passions, and emptied his purse. Again his boon companions, finding him without a broken cowrie, drove him from their doors, he stole and was flogged for theft; and lastly, half famished, he fled the city. Then he said to himself, "I must go to my father-in-law, and make the excuse that a grandson has been born to him, and that I have come ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... (often taken for twigs), threads of sacking and other foreign matter, it is very carefully sieved and sorted before passing on to the roasting shop. In this process curios are occasionally separated, such as palm kernels, cowrie shells, shea butter nuts, good luck seeds and "crab's eyes." The essential part of one type of machine (see illustration) which accomplishes this sorting is an inclined revolving cylinder of wire ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp



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