East Ind. Also 7 tolla; anglicized tole, toll; 9 tolah. [Hindī tola:—Skr. tulā· balance, scale, weight, f. tul- to weigh.] An East Indian weight, chiefly used for gold or silver, varying at different times and places; now (since 1833) in the British dominions fixed at 180 grains (the weight of the rupee). Also, a coin of this weight.
1614. Purchas, Pilgrimage, V. xvii. (ed. 2), 544. Euery Tole is a Rupia of siluer, and tenne of those Toles is the value of one of golde.
1618. in Foster, Eng. Factories Ind. (1906), 47. 521/2 tole make a seere of 30 pices.
1683. W. Hedges, Diary (Hakl. Soc.), I. 83. They … tooke from them 4 or 5 tolas upon a Seer, over weight, on all their Silk brought into ye Warehouse.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., III. 18. All Gold and Silver is weighed by the Tole.
1800. Misc. Tr., in Asiat. Ann. Reg., 45/1. Each of these persons shall pay a fixed revenue of a tola of gold to the Rajah.
1803. Greville, in Phil. Trans., XCIII. 203, note. A tolah is about 180 grains, Troy weight.
1895. 19th Cent., Aug., 255. I placed a piece of gold, weighing a tola, on his lap.
