sixpence
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English
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/6d_1787.jpg/200px-6d_1787.jpg)
Etymology
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[edit]Noun
[edit]sixpence (countable and uncountable, plural sixpences)
- (obsolete, British, uncountable) The value of six old pence; half of a shilling; or one-fortieth of a pound sterling.
- Finest apples, sixpence each.
- 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXIX, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 221:
- When the ferry-boat with her wild freight pushed into the stream, nobody cared sixpence for the wasted time but the captain of the craft.
- (historical) A former British coin worth sixpence, first minted in 1551.
- Have you got two sixpences for a shilling?
- 1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, The Talisman, page 55:
- "One penny, sir!" He was roused at once from his abstraction; for it was a question to himself whether he had even that in his pocket. Sixpence was, however, discovered; he paid the toll, and passed on.
- 1994, Neil Gaiman, Mr. Punch:
- I remember playing card games with my grandfather. Games of memory, not of skill. If I won, he gave me sixpence; if he won, he didn't. We would play until I was bored, or until he ran out of sixpences.
Synonyms
[edit]- sixpenny bit
- tanner, lord, tester, tizzy, hog, pig, sow's baby (all slang and dated, archaic, or obsolete)
Derived terms
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- en:Coins
- en:Historical currencies
- en:History of the United Kingdom
- en:Six