Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. Anglo-Ind.) money, cash, funds.

1857		‘Qui Hi’ What is to be done with the Bengal Army? 83: But the Sepoy has no love for letter-writing, and the very strongest affection for his pice.
1871		Mrs M. Mitchell A Missionary’s Wife 65: Dr Mitchell was amused to hear a remark about the Sahib introduced, finishing with, ‘I wonder if he has got any pice in his pocket!’.
1889		Friend of China XI 178: He manages now, he said, to secure enough pice to supply him with opium by selling sweets in the street.
1891		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 19 June 4/3: [T]he sentiment to keep your pice in your pocket and not let the canteen man have it.
1892		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 10 Aug. 5/2: What for make little of Rajah ? He not spent Government pice.
1911		Oxford and Cambridge Rev. XVI-XVIII 188: Or – disquieting thought – it may be that they bred it in their far-off home, and brought it all the way to the great city, to sell for much pice.
1928		A.H. Hardinge Diplomatist in East 376: ‘[L]iving not by any regular employment, but from hand to mouth on what, in slang parlance, would be called ‘odd jobs,’ whenever they happen to want enough pice to satisfy their very primitive and simple needs’.
1937		L.L. Ashby & R. Whately My India 34: At other times, either just before pay day or when short of pice, she would have suthoo, the poor man’s meal, made from ground, parched gram, a leguminous vegetable similar to peas.
2014		B.D. Kharpran Daly Long Drop [ebook] Gautam, who had [...] the wherewithal to get the case filed in the Supreme Court, without any paise being spent.