sixpence
Americannoun
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sixpence,
plural
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sixpences
plural
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(used with a singular or plural verb) a sum of six pennies.
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(used with a singular verb) a cupronickel coin of the United Kingdom, the half of a shilling, formerly equal to six pennies: equal to two and one-half new pence after decimalization in 1971.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sixpence
First recorded in 1350–1400, sixpence is from Middle English sexe pans. See six, pence
Vocabulary lists containing sixpence
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:
The chaplain recorded that the plaque was nailed to some kind of marker, with a silver sixpence bearing the queen’s image.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2025
Once a week, if the family had a sixpence to spare, Thomas would walk to the public baths and swim “just to get clean.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 31, 2020
On April 3, 1769, Robert Hays paid 45 pounds, two shillings and sixpence for 339 and one-half acres in what would shortly become Franklin Township.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 17, 2019
And then he turns on a sixpence: a change in register, a look in his eyes – which can glint with cruelty, sarcasm, turmoil.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 16, 2019
“Your mother might want to put in her sixpence ha'penny, but...”
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
It was heard all of the coins were silver and included half crowns, shillings and sixpences.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2021
The funny old game with players who could turn on sixpences is gone, but a new breed of football clichés is emerging.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 7, 2013
In London, a coroner found that the late Sidney Corrall, acquisitive but non compos mentis, had swallowed and kept all to himself 201 pennies, florins, shillings, halfpennies, sixpences, half crowns, and threepenny bits.
From Time Magazine Archive
The most extensive case of coin swallowing was reported by Sedgefield General Hospital, County Durham, England, where a man was relieved of 366 halfpennies, 26 sixpences.
From Time Magazine Archive
Now the three hundred remaining three-halfpences make an hundred and fifty threepences, and threescore and fifteen sixpences; put that together, and it comes just to eight hundred and twenty-five reals, or sixpences, to a farthing.
From The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
