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ha'penny

American  
[hey-puh-nee, heyp-nee] / ˈheɪ pə ni, ˈheɪp ni /

noun

British.
ha'pennies plural
  1. contraction of halfpenny.


ha'penny British  
/ ˈheɪpnɪ /

noun

  1. a variant spelling of halfpenny

"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

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

I’m sure you’ve all missed ’em: The ha’penny, farthing and shilling.

From Washington Post Sep. 3, 2020

Lovers engraved their names on tokens, the tide carried them away; children tried to catch wriggling elvers, dropping a ha’penny as they slipped free.

From New York Times Apr. 1, 2020

But Fable Coin Golf is a miniature triumph, brilliantly mixing the dynamics of pinball and shove ha'penny with cunningly compelling results.

From The Guardian Jul. 12, 2011

I had always liked the mere fact of a ha'penny; the sweetly poetic touch of putting the jenny wren - the smallest British bird - on the smallest coin, the humble farthing.

From BBC Apr. 30, 2010

If you haven’t a penny A ha’penny will do And if you haven’t a ha’penny God bless you.

From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt

In a league that barely has two ha’pennies to rub together.

From The Guardian Jan. 19, 2016

It’s hardly surprising that this massive change in the reading audience was associated with shifts of subject matter that tended to replace gold sovereigns with ha’pennies.

From Slate Dec. 10, 2014

Photograph: Laurence CendrowiczCendrowicz This was the year a heartwarming about slimy, crying heads bursting through cockney women's ha'pennies became a mainstream hit.

From The Guardian Dec. 29, 2012

He carefully picked all the ha'pennies from the collection, marched to the church door, pitched them into the street.

From Time Magazine Archive

“Of course,” he said as he emptied his purse onto the table then fingered through the jumbled coins: heavy silver talents and thin silver bits, copper jots, broken ha’pennies, and iron drabs.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

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