Also (6 crocherd(e), 7 creitzer, 8 creutzer, crutzer, 9 kreuzer. [Ger. kreuzer, f. kreuz cross; the coin having been originally stamped with a cross.] A small coin (originally silver, afterwards copper) formerly current in parts of Germany and in Austria.
The value has varied, the most recent being the Bavarian kreutzer = about 1/3 of a penny, and the Austrian = about 1/4d.
1547. Boorde, Introd. Knowl., xiii. (1870), 157. They [the Dutch] haue crocherdes; iii crocherds is les worth than a styuer.
1617. Moryson, Itin., I. 67. I paid for my supper twenty creitzers.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3914/5. Worth … 16 Creutzers, which is about 8 Pence English.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), I. 121. This castle was built … in times when artificers worked for a crutzer a day.
1822. W. Irving, in Life & Lett. (1864), II. 103. The gentlemen … pay each a piece of six kreutzers.
1874. Ruskin, Fors Clav., IV. 69. By this time I shouldn’t have had a bit of skin left as big as a kreutzer.
