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• penny
  penny

  noun

  a copper and zinc U.S. coin, worth one 100th of the U.S. dollar; one cent. Previous compositions of U.S. pennies included certain percentages of nickel and steel.
• Penny
  Penny

  noun

  a female given name, form of Penelope.

penny

¹ American  

[pen-ee] / ˈpɛn i /

noun

• pennies,
  plural
• pence
  plural

1. a copper and zinc U.S. coin, worth one 100th of the U.S. dollar; one cent. Previous compositions of U.S. pennies included certain percentages of nickel and steel.

2. a coin worth one 100th of the dollar of various other nations, although several of these nations, as Australia and New Zealand, no longer use pennies.

3. Also called new penny. a copper-plated steel, formerly bronze, coin of the United Kingdom, one 100th of a pound. p

4. a former bronze coin and monetary unit of the United Kingdom and various other nations, one 12th of a shilling: use phased out in 1971. d.

5. a sum of money.

   He spent every penny he ever earned.

6. the length of a nail in terms of certain standard designations, as eightpenny and sixtypenny.

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adjective

1. Stock Exchange. of, relating to, or being penny stock.

   frenzied speculation in the penny market.

idioms

1. spend a penny, to urinate.

2. turn an honest penny, to earn one's living honestly; make money by fair means.

   He's never turned an honest penny in his life.

3. a pretty penny, a considerable sum of money.

   Their car must have cost them a pretty penny.

4. a bad penny, someone or something undesirable.

Penny ² American  

[pen-ee] / ˈpɛn i /

noun

1. a female given name, form of Penelope.

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penny British  

/ ˈpɛnɪ /

noun

1. Also called (formerly): new penny, p. (in Britain) a bronze coin having a value equal to one hundredth of a pound

2. d. (in Britain before 1971) a bronze or copper coin having a value equal to one twelfth of a shilling or one two-hundred-and-fortieth of a pound

3. a former monetary unit of the Republic of Ireland worth one hundredth of a pound

4. (in the US and Canada) a cent

5. a coin of similar value, as used in several other countries

6. informal (used with a negative) the least amount of money

   I don't have a penny

7. informal an objectionable person or thing (esp in the phrase turn up like a bad penny )

8. informal a considerable sum of money

9. informal to urinate

10. informal the explanation of something was finally realized

11. plentiful but of little value

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penny More Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing penny

• in for a penny, in for a pound
• pinch pennies
• pretty penny
• turn up (like a bad penny)

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• pennied
  adjective
• unpennied
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• pence
  plural
• pennies
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of penny

First recorded before 900; Middle English peni, Old English penig, pænig, pen(n)ning, pending, cognate with Old Frisian penning, panning, Old Saxon, Dutch penning, Old High German pfenning, phantinc, phenting ( German Pfennig ), Old Norse penningr (perhaps from Old English ); from unattested West Germanic or Germanic pandingaz, probably equivalent to unattested pand- + unattested -ingaz; see -ing ³. The origin of spend a penny is from the former cost of using a public lavatory

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Explanation

It takes a hundred pennies to make a dollar. Even though it doesn't have a heck of a lot of value, a penny may bring you luck if you pick it up (as the saying goes). In the US, a penny is a one-cent, copper-colored coin, which features Abraham Lincoln's profile on one side. Many countries' currencies include pennies as the very smallest unit of money, including Canada, Britain, and South Africa. While the plural form of penny is pence in the UK, and it's often abbreviated as p there, in North America the plural is commonly pennies — and sometimes cents.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

penny Penny pence pennies

“That basically means every single penny I’ve been making in extra payments is going to go toward interest,” he said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026

On Monday, diesel futures in New York were little changed from Friday’s close and had erased all but a penny of the after-hours decline sparked by Trump’s social-media post announcing the deal.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

Boise Cascade’s second-quarter sales came in at $1.83 billion, up 5% from a year earlier, while its earnings per share were down a penny to $1.63.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026

Yeah, you talked about your grandfather being like, “I was so proud I never took a penny from the government.”

From Slate ● Sep. 28, 2026

Fred shrugged and gestured with his head toward the store that sold gummies and penny candy.

From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen

That reflects softer production at the Penny gold mine and lower overall mill grades, Redfern says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 26, 2026

In a 1987 proposal from former Rep. Tim Penny, a Democrat who represented Minnesota from 1983-1995, the flat-rate strategy would use a benchmark determined by the dollar amount the beneficiary in the 20th percentile received.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026

The company, which is experiencing what board chair Penny Herscher described as “extraordinary market demand” amid the AI boom, is focused on maintaining its leadership position, she said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026

This was first proposed by former Rep. Tim Penny, now co-chair of the CRFB, back in the 1980s.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026

Lidia gives Penny the plastic butterfly and collects clothes from the floor.

From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera

Man Group’s shares closed at 336.40 pence on Thursday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

Duty paid on draught alcohol in pubs and bars is up to 11 pence cheaper than that sold in supermarkets.

From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026

Barclays raises its recommendation on the stock to overweight from equal weight, and increases the price target to 850 pence from 740 pence.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

Shares are down 4.2% at 119.20 pence, but 21% higher over the year-to-date.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

On some Sundays, the congregation listened closely even when Father Benedict talked about things everybody already knew, about Papa making the biggest donations to Peter s pence and St. Vincent de Paul.

From "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Stock your employer put in 25 years ago may have cost pennies against today’s price.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

Prices were rising "not just by pennies", but by "25 or 30 pence" each time she visited the shops, she added.

From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026

Seeing into the future that she’d soon be asked to work for pennies while someone else got obscenely rich, she passed.

From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026

That changed more recently as the value of emptying office buildings plummeted, enabling developers to acquire these towers for pennies on the dollar.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

He looked at the grubby floor, strewn with toilet paper and a few pennies, and tried to think of something else—anything else.

From "Shooting Kabul" by N. H. Senzai

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