Like other similar measures such as tael and
catty, the English word "mace" derives from
Malay, in this case through
Dutch maes, plural
masen, from Malay
mas which, in turn, derived from
Sanskrit '''' (), a word related to "mash," another name for the
urad bean, and
masha, a traditional Indian unit of weight equal to 0.97 gram. This word is unrelated to
other uses of "mace" in English. The Chinese word for mace is
qián (), which is also a generic word for "money" in
Mandarin Chinese. The same
Chinese character (
kanji) was used for the
Japanese
sen, the former unit equal to of a
Japanese yen, the
Korean
chŏn (
revised:
jeon), the former unit equal to of a
Korean won, and for the
Vietnamese tiền, a currency used in late
imperial Vietnam, although none of these has ever been known as "mace" in English. Besides in precious metal measurements (gold, silver) in Vietnam, mace is
chỉ which is equivalent to 37.5 grams. ==See also==