coupon

American  

[koo-pon, kyoo-] / ˈku pɒn, ˈkyu- /

noun

1. a portion of a certificate, ticket, label, advertisement, or the like, set off from the main body by dotted lines or the like to emphasize its separability, entitling the holder to something, as a gift or discount, or for use as an order blank, a contest entry form, etc.

2. a separate certificate, ticket, etc., for the same purpose.

3. Finance. one of a number of small detachable certificates calling for periodic interest payments on a bearer bond.

4. Metallurgy. a sample of metal or metalwork submitted to a customer or testing agency for approval.

---

coupon British  

/ ˈkuːpɒn /

noun

1. 1. a detachable part of a ticket or advertisement entitling the holder to a discount, free gift, etc

   2. a detachable slip usable as a commercial order form

   3. a voucher given away with certain goods, a certain number of which are exchangeable for goods offered by the manufacturers

2. one of a number of detachable certificates attached to a bond, esp a bearer bond, the surrender of which entitles the bearer to receive interest payments

3. one of several detachable cards used for making hire-purchase payments

4. a ticket issued to facilitate rationing

5. a detachable entry form for any of certain competitions, esp football pools

---

Pronunciation

Coupon, related to cope and coup, is of French origin. It has developed an American pronunciation variant with an unhistorical y -sound not justified by the spelling. This pronunciation is used by educated speakers and is well-established as perfectly standard, although it is sometimes criticized. Its development may have been encouraged by analogy with words like curious, cupid, and cute, where c is followed by a “long u ” and the is mandatory.

Other Word Forms

• couponless adjective

Etymology

Origin of coupon

1815–25; < French; Old French colpon piece cut off, equivalent to colp(er) to cut ( cope ¹ ) + -on noun suffix

Example Sentences

Around 700 coupons are distributed daily, and cooked food is sent to 16 nearby mosques to serve both to the needy and the faithful.

From BBC

Fixed income investors fear inflation because it erodes the present value of future coupon and principal payments.

From Barron's

Private credit loans make regular coupon payments and they have a maturity date, Jacobs van Merlen notes.

From Barron's

We were issued ration cards too, but at least that first year, the coupons represented food and merchandise actually available in the stores.

From Literature

Spreads in the roughly $9.5 trillion agency mortgage-bond market have been moving higher, with the “current coupon” near 5.25%, which is a spread of about 125 basis points above the risk-free Treasury rate.

From MarketWatch

Related Words

• advertisement
• card
• certificate
• voucher