coin
[koin]
- a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as money.
- a number of such pieces.
- Informal. money; cash: He's got plenty of coin in the bank.
- Architecture. quoin(defs 1, 2).
- Archaic. a corner cupboard of the 18th century.
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- operated by, or containing machines operated by, inserting a coin or coins into a slot: a coin laundry.
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- to make (coinage) by stamping metal: The mint is coining pennies.
- to convert (metal) into coinage: The mint used to coin gold into dollars.
- to make; invent; fabricate: to coin an expression.
- Metalworking. to shape the surface of (metal) by squeezing between two dies.Compare emboss(def 3).
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- British Informal. to counterfeit, especially to make counterfeit money.
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- coin money, Informal. to make or gain money rapidly: Those who own stock in that restaurant chain are coining money.
- pay someone back in his/her own coin, to reciprocate or behave toward in a like way, especially inamicably; retaliate: If they persist in teasing you, pay them back in their own coin.
- the other side of the coin, the other side, aspect, or point of view; alternative consideration.
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Origin of coin
1300–50; Middle English coyn(e), coygne < Anglo-French; Middle French coin, cuigne wedge, corner, die < Latin cuneus wedge
COIN
[koin]
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Origin of COIN
co(unter) in(surgency)
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for coin
Contemporary Examples
She was gambling on a coin toss where somehow “heads, you win” would have been politically more advantageous than “tails, I lose.”
But the other side of the coin would be, inevitably, the flowering of crime and corruption around the gambling business.
Backstage, a coin toss determined the order for each of the battles.
For much of Hollywood history, stars like Cruise were the coin of the realm; now the industry has stopped minting new models.
However, Vladimir Putin has stepped it up and is giving us the opportunity to coin a new phrase connoting residency in crazy town.
Historical Examples
They had best take care he did not pay them in their own coin.
Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9)Samuel Richardson
Last of all, there was the explosion, the carrying off of the coin in its canvas sacks to the horses.
Way of the LawlessMax Brand
"I had to coin a name for the place of meeting," he said to Mrs. Roberts afterwards.
Ester Ried Yet SpeakingIsabella Alden
He raised the covering hand, and peered at the coin in the gathering gloom.
In the Midst of AlarmsRobert Barr
What's any of them little haythen been coin' to scare ye, missy?
Her Father's DaughterGene Stratton-Porter
coin
- a metal disc or piece used as money
- metal currency, as opposed to securities, paper currency, etcRelated adjective: nummary
- architect a variant spelling of quoin
- pay a person back in his own coin to treat a person in the way that he has treated others
- the other side of the coin the opposite view of a matter
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- (tr) to make or stamp (coins)
- (tr) to make into a coin
- (tr) to fabricate or invent (words, etc)
- (tr) informal to make (money) rapidly (esp in the phrase coin it in)
- to coin a phrase said ironically after one uses a cliché
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French: stamping die, from Latin cuneus wedge
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for coin
n.
c.1300, "a wedge," from Old French coing (12c.) "a wedge; stamp; piece of money; corner, angle," from Latin cuneus "a wedge." The die for stamping metal was wedge-shaped, and the English word came to mean "thing stamped, a piece of money" by late 14c. (a sense that already had developed in French). Cf. quoin, which split off from this word 16c. Modern French coin is "corner, angle, nook." Coins were first struck in western Asia Minor in 7c. B.C.E.; Greek tradition and Herodotus credit the Lydians with being first to make and use coins of silver and gold.
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v.
"to coin money," mid-14c., from coin (n.). Related: Coined; coining. To coin a phrase is late 16c. A Middle English word for minter was coin-smiter.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with coin
coin
In addition to the idiom beginning with coin
also see:
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.