Dictionary

sixpence en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈsɪks.pəns/ (UK)
• (US) audio

Etymology

From six + pence.

Meanings

1. (British, Irish, obsolete, uncountable) 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. (countable, historical, uncountable) A former British or Irish coin worth six pennies, first minted in 1551.
   • 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:
   • 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:

Forms

Deriveds

on a sixpence · upon a sixpence · mill-sixpence · look as if one has lost a shilling and found sixpence · look as if one had lost a shilling and found sixpence

Descendants

sixpence · sixpence

Relateds

eightpence · tuppence · twopence · threepence · tenpence · fivepence · fourpence

Synonyms

tester · sixpenny bit · sow's baby · lord · tizzy · pig · hog · tanner

Translations (1)

eo ses-penco (former British coin)