halfpenny.
Senses chiefly with the plural form halfpennies.
Meaning & usage
Senses chiefly with the plural form halfpennies. A discontinued English (later British) coin worth half of one penny (old or new).
Senses chiefly with the plural form halfpennies. A similar coin formerly used in Ireland and Scotland.
Senses chiefly with the plural form halfpence. An amount of money that the English (later British) coin was worth.
Senses chiefly with the plural form halfpence. An amount of money that the Irish or Scottish coin was worth.
A postage stamp worth half of one penny.
A usually semicircular earmark made in the ear of a livestock animal.
A small piece; a fragment.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English halpeni, halfpeni (“English coin worth half a penny; coin used in biblical times; small foreign coin”), and then either: * from half (“half”) (from Old English healf; ultimate etymology unknown, possible from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to incline”) or *(s)kelH- (“to cut; to separate, split”)) + peni, penni (“English coin; coin used in biblical times; foreign coin; (especially in the plural) cash, money; pennyweight”) (from Old English penning, from Proto-Germanic *panningaz (“coin, penny”); further etymology uncertain); or * from Late Old English halpene, halpenige (which can also be construed as early Middle English), from healf + penning (see above). By surface analysis, half + penny.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.