What does dinar mean?
The dinar is the official unit of currency in a number of countries across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans, including Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Serbia, and Tunisia. Because each country issues its own dinar with an independent exchange rate, the word is normally used with a nationality attached — the Kuwaiti dinar, for instance, is one of the highest-valued currency units in the world, while the Iraqi dinar trades at thousands to the US dollar. The name carries a remarkable history: it derives from the Roman denarius, a silver coin of antiquity, and was adopted by the early Islamic caliphates for their gold coinage from the late seventh century onward. That medieval gold dinar circulated widely across trade routes spanning three continents, giving the word a pedigree few currency names can match. Today the term appears chiefly in financial news, travel contexts, and discussions of exchange rates.
The basic monetary unit of Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Serbia, Tunisia, and certain other countries, subdivided variously into 100 or 1,000 smaller units depending on the country.
"The Central Bank of Kuwait reported that the dinar had strengthened against the dollar."
Almost always qualified by the country name in practice, since multiple unrelated currencies share the name.
A gold coin of the Islamic world, first minted under the Umayyad caliphate in the late 7th century and widely used in medieval trade.
"The hoard contained dozens of gold dinars struck in Cairo during the Fatimid era."
The regular English plural is 'dinars'. In some issuing countries, the form remains unchanged after numerals following local convention (e.g., '500 dinar' on banknotes), but 'dinars' is standard in English prose.
"The souvenir cost her only a handful of dinars."
The dinar takes its name from the Roman denarius — a coin that has been in continuous circulation, in one form or another, for over two thousand years.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of dinar
The word dinar comes from the Arabic dīnār, which was itself borrowed from the Latin denarius, the standard silver coin of the Roman Empire. When the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik introduced Islamic gold coinage in the 690s CE, he adopted the familiar name for the new gold piece, and the dinar became the principal gold coin of the medieval Islamic world. Modern nations that later adopted the currency retained the historic name, and cognates such as the denier of medieval France, the Italian denaro, and the Macedonian denar all trace back to the same Latin root.
How dinar is actually used
In everyday use, dinar almost always refers to one of the modern national currencies and is typically preceded by the country name (e.g., Kuwaiti dinar, Serbian dinar) to avoid ambiguity, since exchange rates differ enormously — the Kuwaiti dinar is among the world's most valuable currency units. Pluralization varies: English speakers commonly say 'dinars', though in some countries the local convention leaves the form unchanged after numerals.
Easily confused with dinar
The denar is specifically the currency of North Macedonia, whereas 'dinar' is a related word for the currencies of many Middle Eastern and North African countries.