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# cowrie

«cowrie» in Mova's school dictionary: **a small sea snail with a smooth, shiny, rounded shell** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (cowrie, cowries — also spelled cowry)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A cowrie is a small sea snail with a smooth, shiny, rounded shell. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#m1)

2) A cowrie is also the shell of this snail, which was used as money in parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific long ago and is still used in jewellery. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In history lessons, cowrie shells are a famous example of early money: people traded goods for them. In art and design they decorate necklaces, bags and clothes. On beaches in Australia and New Zealand children sometimes find cowrie shells. Common phrases: «cowrie shell», «cowrie money», «a string of cowries».

### examples

- She found a tiny cowrie shell on the beach in Queensland. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#x1)
- Long ago, people in West Africa used cowries as money. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#x2)
- The necklace was made of white cowrie shells. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#x3)
- A cowrie shell is smooth and shiny like glass. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#x4)
- Our teacher showed us a cowrie to explain early money. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#x5)
- The cowrie snail lives in warm, shallow seas. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#x6)
- He swapped a bag of cowries for a goat in the trading game. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/#x7)

### note

Plural: cowries. Also spelled «cowry». Say COW-ree (rhymes with «how-ree»). It has nothing to do with cows. In history, cowrie shells were a kind of money, so you could count prices in shells.

### In the corpora

- [People paid in grain, silver weighed on scales and cowrie shells.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/63-writing-laws-and-money-how-strangers-learned-to-trust-each-other/8/)
- [Long ago, in parts of Africa and Asia, small shiny cowrie shells were used as money.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/money/5-money-s-history-shells-coins-paper-cards-phones/4/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «cowrie» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/cowrie/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.