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PENNY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected form: pence
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A coin worth one-hundredth of the value of the basic unit
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession
Hypernyms ("penny" is a kind of...):
coin (a flat metal piece (usually a disc) used as money)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "penny"):
copper (a copper penny)
new penny (a coin used in Great Britain since 1971 worth one hundredth of a pound)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A fractional monetary unit of Ireland and the United Kingdom; equal to one hundredth of a pound
Classified under:
Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure
Hypernyms ("penny" is a kind of...):
fractional monetary unit; subunit (a monetary unit that is valued at a fraction (usually one hundredth) of the basic monetary unit)
Holonyms ("penny" is a part of...):
British pound; British pound sterling; pound; pound sterling; quid (the basic unit of money in Great Britain and Northern Ireland; equal to 100 pence)
Irish pound; Irish punt; pound; punt (formerly the basic unit of money in Ireland; equal to 100 pence)
Context examples:
Sure, but I managed to direct every penny to their care, for that was my goal, to give them a good, solid start in life.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
At one place a man was selling green lemonade, and when the children bought it Dorothy could see that they paid for it with green pennies.
(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)
This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
I stuck it in, like into soft butter, an’ the w’y ’e squealed was better’n a tu-penny gaff.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Go, then, my dear Watson, and if my humble counsel can ever be valued at so extravagant a rate as two pence a word, it waits your disposal night and day at the end of the Continental wire.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Often enough when the first of the month came round and I applied to him for my wage, he would only blow through his nose at me and stare me down, but before the week was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my four-penny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for the seafaring man with one leg.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
I was in it two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle's, and prefer it to almost any I know in London, and certainly she will then feel, to use a vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworth for her penny.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Every evening, at the same hour, he walked into the consulting-room, examined the books, put down five and three-pence for every guinea that I had earned, and carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I answered, it was very true; and I wondered how I could forbear, when I saw his dishes of the size of a silver three-pence, a leg of pork hardly a mouthful, a cup not so big as a nut-shell; and so I went on, describing the rest of his household-stuff and provisions, after the same manner.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed him a dingy street, a gin palace, a low French eating house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and twopenny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many women of many different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from his blackguardly surroundings.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
