A mace (; Hong Kong English usage: tsin;[1] Southeast Asian English usage: chee[2]) is a traditional Chinese measurement of weight in East Asia that was also used as a currency denomination. It is equal to 10 candareens and is of a tael or approximately 3.78 grams. A troy mace is approximately 3.7429 grams. In Hong Kong, one mace is grams.[1] and in Ordinance 22 of 1884, it is ounces avoirdupois. In Singapore, one mace (referred to as chee) is grams.[3]
In imperial China, 10 candareens equaled 1 mace which was of a tael and, like the other units, was used in weight-denominated silver currency system. A common denomination was 7 mace and 2 candareens, equal to one silver Chinese yuan.
Like other similar measures such as tael and catty, the English word "mace" derives from Malay, in this case through Dutch maes, plural masen, from Malay mas which, in turn, derived from Sanskrit (Sanskrit: माष), a word related to "mash," another name for the urad bean, and masha, a traditional Indian unit of weight equal to 0.97 gram. This word is unrelated to other uses of "mace" in English.
The Chinese word for mace is qián, which is also a generic word for "money" in Mandarin Chinese. The same Chinese character (kanji) was used for the Japanese sen, the former unit equal to of a Japanese yen, the Korean chŏn (revised: jeon), the former unit equal to of a Korean won, and for the Vietnamese tiền, a currency used in late imperial Vietnam, although none of these has ever been known as "mace" in English.