Category:Dram

Dram, n. Etym: [OF. drame, F. drachme, L. drachma, drachm, drachma, fr. Gr. Drachm, Drachma.]

1. A weight; in Apothecaries' weight, one eighth part of an ounce, or sixty grains; in Avoirdupois weight, one sixteenth part of an ounce, or 27.34375 grains.

2. A minute quantity; a mite. Were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times as mush the forcible hindrance of evildoing. Milton.

3. As much spirituous liquor as is usually drunk at once; as, a dram of brandy; hence, a potation or potion; as, a dram of poison. Shak.

4. (Numis.)

Defn: A Persian daric. Ezra ii. 69. Fluid dram, or Fluid drachm. See under Fluid.

dram Dram, v. i. & t.

Defn: To drink drams; to ply with drams. [Low] Johnson. Thackeray.

---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

Dram - The Authorized Version understood the word 'adarkonim (1 Chronicles 29:7; Ezra 8:27), and the similar word darkomnim (Ezra 2:69; Nehemiah 7:70), as equivalent to the Greek silver coin the drachma. But the Revised Version rightly regards it as the Greek dareikos, a Persian gold coin (the daric ) of the value of about 1 pound, 2 shekel, which was first struck by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, and was current in Western Asia long after the fall of the Persian empire. (See DARIC.)