monetary unit - a monetary unitunit, unit of measurement - any division of quantity accepted as a standard of measurement or exchange; "the dollar is the United States unit of currency"; "a unit of wheat is a bushel"; "change per unit volume" dollar - the basic monetary unit in many countries; equal to 100 cents euro - the basic monetary unit of most members of the European Union (introduced in 1999); in 2002 twelve European nations (Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Austria, Finland) adopted the euro as their basic unit of money and abandoned their traditional currencies franc - the basic monetary unit in many countries; equal to 100 centimes |