Also 6 cru(e)sadowe, 7–9 cruzado, 8 crusada, (crusad, cruzate, 8–9 crusade). [ad. Pg. cruzado lit. ‘crossed, marked with the cross.’] A Portuguese coin bearing the figure of a cross, originally of gold, later also of silver; the new crusado is of 480 reis (161/4 grains of gold or 219 grains of silver) = about 2s. 4d. sterling.
1544. Will of R. Osborne (Somerset Ho.). One syde Crusadowes & the other side haulfe Aungelle.
1577. Harrison, England, II. xxv. (1877), I. 364. Of forren coines we haue … ducats … crusadoes [etc.].
1604. Shaks., Oth., III. iv. 26. I had rather haue lost my purse Full of Cruzadoes.
1683. Brit. Spec., 267. Eight hundred Millions of Reas, or two Millions of Crusadoes, amounting to about three hundred thousand Pounds Sterling.
1695. Lond. Gaz., No. 3086/2. The Crusado of Portugal … to pass at 3sh. 6d.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., Cruzado, in commerce, is a Portugueze coin, struck under Alphonsus V. about the year 1457, at the time when pope Calixtus sent thither the bull for a croisade, against the infidels.
1853. Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., III. xxxii. 406, note. The value of an arroba of gold is 15,000 Brazilian cruzados (each cruzado being 50 sous).
