Penny

How to spell penny

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce penny

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does penny mean?

1. nounA coin of low value; in Britain one hundredth of a pound, and in the United States and Canada another name for the one-cent piece.

Penny in a sentence

• She found a shiny penny on the pavement outside the shop.

• The toll machine would not accept a single penny as payment.

Where does penny come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English penig or penning, the name of a small coin used across early medieval England and the wider Germanic world. Its ultimate origin is uncertain, though it is shared with the Dutch penning and the German Pfennig, all pointing to a common Germanic ancestor for a piece of stamped metal money. Some scholars have tentatively linked it to a root meaning 'pawn' or 'pledge', while others connect it to a word for a pan or dish, perhaps from the coin's shape; the truth is simply not settled. By Middle English the spelling had softened toward 'peny', and the modern doubled-n form became standard later. The familiar plural 'pence' (for a sum of money) sits beside 'pennies' (for individual coins), which is the small quirk that occasionally trips writers up.

How the word is built

• penn (Old English penig: a coin)
• -y (noun, surviving root form)