Tenges

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The name for currency units in certain Central Asian countries ; plural form for Kazakhstan's unit of money ; refers to national legal tender in specific regions
2. Designates monetary units used in Kazakhstan and formerly in other Turkic-speaking areas ; serves as the plural for the official medium of exchange in those places ; describes forms of legal currency specific to certain nations
3. Indicates multiple units of the Kazakhstani national money ; represents currency denominations in regions with similar language roots ; denotes official monetary systems in select states

Etymology: The plural "tenges" is simply the English plural of "tenge", the name of Kazakhstan's currency. The noun comes from Kazakh "теңге" (teŋge), and the word has a surprising Persian-Mongolian connection: it descends from the Persian "tanga", a term for a silver coin that spread across Central Asia and into Indian and Russian usage. Because the noun is a loanword from Kazakh, English speakers mostly encounter it in its plural form when discussing money amounts, as in "ten thousand tenges." Its inflection follows the regular English pattern of adding "-s" to a count noun.

Synonyms: Kazakh tenge, currency