dol·lar

[dol-er]
noun
1.
a paper money, silver or cupronickel coin, and monetary unit of the United States, equal to 100 cents. Symbol: $
2.
a silver or nickel coin and monetary unit of Canada, equal to 100 cents. Symbol: $
3.
any of the monetary units of various other nations, as Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Fiji, Guyana, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Liberia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zimbabwe, equal to 100 cents.
4.
Also called ringgit. a cupronickel coin and monetary unit of Brunei, equal to 100 sen.
5.
ringgit ( def 1 ).
6.
a thaler.
7.
a peso.
8.
Levant dollar.
9.
yuan ( def 1 ).
10.
British Slang.
a.
five-shilling piece; crown.
b.
the sum of five shillings.
Origin:
1545–55; earlier daler < Low German, Dutch daler; cognate with German Taler, short for Joachimsthaler coin minted in Joachimsthal in Bohemia

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.
a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
dollar (ˈdɒlə) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
—n
1.  the standard monetary unit of the US and its dependencies, divided into 100 cents
2.  the standard monetary unit, comprising 100 cents, of the following countries or territories: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kiribati, Liberia, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, and Zimbabwe
3.  informal (Brit) (formerly) five shillings or a coin of this value
4.  informal look or feel (like) a million dollars to look or feel extremely well
 
[C16: from Low German daler, from German Taler, Thaler, short for Joachimsthaler coin made from metal mined in Joachimsthal Jachymov, town now in the Czech Republic]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

dollar
1553, from Low Ger. daler, from Ger. taler (1540, later thaler), abbrev. of Joachimstaler, lit. "(gulden) of Joachimstal," coin minted 1519 from silver from mine opened 1516 near Joachimstal, town in Erzgebirge Mountains in northwest Bohemia. Ger. Tal is cognate with Eng.
dale. Ger. thaler was a large silver coin of varying value in the Ger. states (and a unit of the Ger. monetary union of 1857-73 equal to three marks); it was also a currency unit in Denmark and Sweden. Eng. colonists in America used the word in ref. to Spanish pieces of eight. Continental Congress July 6, 1785, adopted dollar when it set up U.S. currency, on suggestion of Gouverneur Morris and Thomas Jefferson, because the term was widely known but not British. But none were actually used until 1794. The dollar sign ($) is said to derive from the image of the Pillars of Hercules, stamped with a scroll, on the Spanish piece of eight. Phrase dollars to doughnuts attested from 1890; dollar diplomacy is from 1910.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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FOLDOC
Computing Dictionary

dollar definition

character
"$" Common names: ITU-T: dollar sign. Rare: currency symbol; buck; cash; string; escape (when used as the echo of ASCII ESC); ding; cache; INTERCAL: big money.
Well-known uses of the dollar symbol in computing include as a prefix on the names of string variables in BASIC, shell and related languages like Perl. In shell languages it is also used in positional parameters so "$1" is the first parameter to a shell script, "$2" the second, etc.
(2006-09-10)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

dollar

In addition to the idiom beginning with dollars, also see feel like a million dollars; look like a million dollars; you can bet your ass (bottom dollar).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia

dollar

originally, a silver coin that circulated in many European countries; in modern times, the name of the standard monetary unit in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. The Spanish peso, or piece of eight, which circulated in the Spanish and English colonies in America, was known as a dollar by the English-speaking peoples. Familiarity with this coin resulted in the official designation of the United States monetary unit as the dollar in 1792. Canada adopted the dollar and monetary decimal system in 1858; Australia in 1966; and New Zealand in 1967.

Learn more about dollar with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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Example sentences
More important was the fact that four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline dramatically changed the way people spent their money.
Beyond making drugs, however, such big-dollar corporate alliances remain rare.
Without cap and trade, polluting companies had no motivation to spend money on
  a multi-million dollar scrubber.
For every dollar of state money, the university secures six dollars in federal
  research money.
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