Picayune

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This article is about the coin. There is also a town called Picayune, Mississippi.

A picayune was a Spanish coin, worth half a real. Its name derives from the French picaillon, which is itself from the Provençal picaioun, meaning "small coin". Besides being used in Spanish territories, it was also a common coin in the south of the United States, and the name has sometimes been used for the US 5-cent coin, which was once worth approximately the same as a picayune. By extension, the word can mean "trivial" or "of little value".

There are also several newspapers called the Picayune, notably the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The first Picayune was named because it originally sold for that price. There is also a Picayune Strand State Forest in Florida, and the entertainer John Butler was sometimes called Picayune. There is also a city in Mississippi by that name. Picayune is also an unfiltered brand of cigarettes touted as “the pride of New Orleans.”