sixpence
nounUK /ˈsɪks.pəns/
Etymology From six + pence.
1
British, Irish, Obsolete The value of six old pence; half of a shilling; or one-fortieth of a pound sterling.
- Finest apples, sixpence each.
- 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.1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXIX, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 221:
2
Historical A former British or Irish coin worth six pennies, first minted in 1551.
- Have you got two sixpences for a shilling?
- "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.1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, The Talisman, page 55:
1 more example
- 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.1994, Neil Gaiman, Mr. Punch:
- Synonyms
- sixpenny bit, tanner, lord, tester, tizzy, hog, pig, sow's baby
- Derived terms
- look as if one had lost a shilling and found sixpence, look as if one has lost a shilling and found sixpence, mill-sixpence, on a sixpence, upon a sixpence
- Related terms
- twopence, tuppence, threepence, fourpence, fivepence, eightpence, tenpence