The Sanskrit term mudra already links gesture to money and imprint.

Evidence

One of the most cliche items routinely noticed in Indian classical dance is the mudra—or the range of expressive hand-head-eye gestures. The Sanskrit word mudra is also coin—a common concept-metaphor straddling the money-form and the simple semiotics of stylized gesture, capable of considerable elaboration, but incapable of incorporating contingency. It is also, characteristically, the word for engraving, imprint. It is not by chance, then, that it is through this already-in-place value-form that the expressive repertoire of the Hollywood musical rushes in, culture-marked with the proper name “India,” ready for exchange. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2072

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains mudra’s dual sense as gesture and coin/value-form, a compact etymology doing theoretical work.
• CANDY: mudra meaning both hand-gesture and coin/imprint is a charming, tweetable etymological nugget.