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shilling.

A coin formerly used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth countries worth twelve old pence, or one twentieth of a pound sterling.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈʃɪlɪŋ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A coin formerly used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth countries worth twelve old pence, or one twentieth of a pound sterling.

    historical
  2. The currency of Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.

  3. A currency in the United States, differing in value between states.

    US · historical
  4. The Spanish real, formerly having the value of one eighth of a dollar.

    US · historical
  5. Alternative form of schilling, a coin formerly used in Germany and German states, worth twelve pfennig.

    alt-of · alternative · historical
  6. Alternative form of skilling, a coin formerly used in Denmark, Norway or Sweden, worth twelve penning.

    alt-of · alternative · historical
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH-der. Proto-Germanic *skiljaną Proto-Indo-European *-lósder. Proto-Germanic *-ilaz Proto-Indo-European *-n̥kʷo-der.? Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Indo-European *-iHnos Proto-Germanic *-īnaz Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz ? Proto-Germanic *-ingaz Proto-Germanic *-ilingaz Proto-Germanic *skillingaz Old English sċilling Middle English schilling English shilling From Middle English schilling, shilling, from Old English sċilling, from Proto-West Germanic *skilling, from Proto-Germanic *skillingaz, equivalent to skill + -ing. Doublet of scalding and schilling. Compare typologically Russian рубль (rublʹ) (akin to руби́ть (rubítʹ)), полти́на (poltína), полти́нник (poltínnik) (akin to Proto-Slavic *tęti).

verb/ˈʃɪlɪŋ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. present participle and gerund of shill

    form-of · gerund · participle · present
Where this word comes from

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

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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.