coin
- 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.
- operated by, or containing machines operated by, inserting a coin or coins into a slot: a coin laundry.
- 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).
- British Informal. to counterfeit, especially to make counterfeit money.
- 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.
Origin of coin
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
- (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
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for coin money
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.
coin
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.
Idioms and Phrases with coin money
coin money
Also, mint money. Make a great deal of money easily or very quickly. For example, With a monopoly on the market he could coin money, or These highly motivated realtors just about enable the agency to mint money. This hyperbolic expression dates from the mid-1800s.
coin
In addition to the idiom beginning with coin
- coin money
also see:
- other side of the coin
- pay back (in someone's own coin)