penny - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

a US penny (2005)

Proto-Indo-European *-nós

Proto-Indo-European *-kos

?

Middle English peny

English penny

From Middle English peny, from Old English peniġ, penniġ, penning (“penny”), from Proto-West Germanic *panning, from Proto-Germanic *panningaz, of uncertain origin (see that page for theories). Doublet of pfennig and fening.

penny (plural pennies or pence or (obsolete) pens)

  1. (historical) In the United Kingdom and Ireland and many other countries, a unit of currency worth 1⁄240 of a pound sterling or Irish pound before decimalisation, or a copper coin worth this amount. Abbreviation: d.
    • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056:
      Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
    • 1950 March, H. A. Vallance, “On Foot Across the Forth Bridge”, in Railway Magazine, page 150:
      We had not proceeded very far across the south cantilever when we saw a penny lying beside the track, and another a short distance further on. We were to find several more pennies, and some half-pennies, before we reached the north shore. Inspector Bell explained that many passengers try to throw a coin into the Forth, for "good luck," while trains are crossing the bridge.
    • 2025 June 25, Christian Wolmar, “How slow boats gradually gave way to rail”, in RAIL, number 1038, page 57:
      However he lost out, as other business interests whom he had alienated by his efforts to squeeze every penny of profit from the canal, supported the construction of the railway.
  2. In the United Kingdom, a unit of currency worth 1⁄100 of a pound sterling, or a copper coin worth this amount. Abbreviation: p.
  3. (historical) In Ireland, a coin worth 1⁄100 of an Irish pound before the introduction of the euro. Abbreviation: p.
  4. In the US and (formerly) Canada, a one-cent coin, worth 1⁄100 of a dollar. Abbreviation: ¢.
    • 2025 May 22, Chris Isidore and Matt Egan, “The Treasury unveils its plan to kill the penny”, in CNN Business‎[1]:
      A Treasury spokesperson said the government made its final order of penny blanks this month, and the United States Mint will continue to manufacture pennies only as long as an inventory of penny blanks exists.
  5. In various countries, a small-denomination copper or brass coin.
  6. A unit of nail size, said to be either the cost per 100 nails, or the number of nails per penny. Abbreviation: d.
  7. Money in general.
    to turn an honest penny

Descendants

1/240 of a pound sterling or Irish pound

1/100 of a pound sterling or British pound

one-cent coin in US and Canada — see cent

penny (third-person singular simple present pennies, present participle pennying, simple past and past participle pennied)

  1. (slang) To jam a door shut by inserting pennies between the doorframe and the door.
    Zach and Ben had only been at college for a week when their door was pennied by the girls down the hall.
  2. (electronics) To circumvent the tripping of an electrical circuit breaker by the dangerous practice of inserting a coin in place of a fuse in a fuse socket.
  3. (Oxbridge slang) During a meal or as part of a drinking game, to drop a penny in a person's drink with the expectation that they finish it (or some such variation thereof); commonly associated with crewdates at Oxford and swaps at Cambridge.
    You got pennied! Down it, fresher.

Borrowed from English penny.

penny

  1. (money) penny (division of a pound)

Borrowed from English penny.

penny m (plural pennys)

  1. penny

penny

  1. (Late Middle English) alternative form of peny

English penny, from Middle English peny, from Old English penning, penniġ, from Proto-Germanic *panningaz. Doublet of penge, penning, and pfennig.

penny m (definite singular pennyen, indefinite plural pence or pennyer, definite plural pencene or pennyene)

  1. a penny

English penny, from Middle English peny, from Old English penning, penniġ, from Proto-Germanic *panningaz. Doublet of penge, penning, and pfennig.

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3=pence 4=pencane dp2=pennyane ip2=pennyar

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penny m (plural pennyen)

  1. a penny

penny m (plural pennies)

  1. alternative spelling of péni

Unadapted borrowing from English penny.

penny m (plural **penny)

  1. penny