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.
Archaic. a corner cupboard of the 18th century.
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.
the other side of the coin, the other side, aspect, or point of view; alternative consideration.
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.
coin money, to make or gain money rapidly.
Those who own stock in that restaurant chain are coining money.
a metal disc or piece used as money
metal currency, as opposed to securities, paper currency, etc
architect a variant spelling of quoin
to treat a person in the way that he has treated others
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)
informal (tr) to make (money) rapidly (esp in the phrase coin it in )
said ironically after one uses a cliché
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English coyn(e), coygne, from Anglo-French; Middle French coin, cuigne “wedge, corner, die,” from Latin cuneus “wedge”
co(unter) in(surgency)
If you coin a phrase, that means you come up with a new way to say something, like the person who coined "webizens" to describe people who constantly use the Internet. The verb coin literally refers to making coins, the change you probably have in your pocket. The word can be used in a broader sense — creating something new, usually something related to language. For example, you could coin a phrase or a new word for “joke.” The language authorities would be proud — unlike federal authorities if you tried to coin money. That kind of coining is a criminal offense.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A simple comparison is repeatedly flipping a coin to decide whether to move one way or another.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
Freedom and uncertainty are two sides of the same coin, and both can create an overwhelming amount of anxiety, especially when money is involved.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
"They are paid to promote a particular crypto coin, meme coin or investment product rather than helping people choose what is suitable for them," he says.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
The company sold 3,588 Bitcoin for less than its average purchase price of $75,476 per coin.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
She opened her bulging coin purse, showing her black dollars and large colorful coins.
From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton
And in March 2017, Futurism reported that “An AI Completed 360,000 Hours of Finance Work in Just Seconds,” in a story of JPMorgan’s “machine learning” successes due to its new program called COIN, Contract Intelligence.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 8, 2018
The strategy, known by its acronym COIN, would require as many as 40,000 additional American men and women in uniform in Afghanistan, his advisers told him.
From New York Times ● Jan. 1, 2017
Governor Hickenlooper, in his 2011 statement announcing COIN, described it as a “roadmap for making Colorado the best state for innovation and where every road must lead to new jobs.”
From Forbes ● Nov. 6, 2014
According to Demaree, Tunnell barred his soldiers from using the term COIN, shorthand for "counterinsurgency."
From Washington Post ● Oct. 14, 2010
Gold dust there was in plenty, but no COIN.
From Sally Dows by Harte, Bret
These coins were supposed to be ready for July 4, but production delays at the U.S.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
He hasn’t looked back since, except to shift some of his investment to physical gold coins.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
This newly identified behavior helps explain why gold jewelry, coins, and other objects can retain their luster for centuries.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 12, 2026
She believed the gold coins may have been hidden there four years ago by a mystery benefactor.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
I take a few coins from my pocket but can’t tell one from the other.
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
And a few women describe the experience of "leg hair harassment" or a term coined online as "sunehara", referring to the discomfort of being forced to see their colleague's leg hair.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
I groaned as strumming Spanish guitars played underneath a cheerful introduction welcoming me to the “Jewel of the Missions” — a slogan that boosters coined decades ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2026
BofA Securities analyst Michael Hartnett first coined the term in 2023, after the megacap tech stocks dragged investors out of the 2022 bear market.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
When prominent AI researcher Andrej Karpathy coined the term “vibe coding” in early 2025, he gave an explicit shoutout to Cursor.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 19, 2026
The term supernova was coined in the 1930s by a memorably odd astrophysicist named Fritz Zwicky.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
He adopted it last year after his daughter prevailed upon him through the writings of Holocaust survivor and lawyer Raphael Lemkin, credited with coining the term.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
“Our fans’ love for McDonald’s beverages runs deep, from rallying for the return of Hi-C Orange Lavaburst to coining the iconic ‘Spicy Sprite,’” McDonald’s said in a statement to Barron’s.
From Barron's ● Apr. 13, 2026
"In the past, people in their 40s were seen as already old," says Kim Yong-Sup, a trend analyst widely credited with coining the term "Young 40".
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2026
In the early ‘90s, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, who were credited with coining the term “millennials,” took generational labels deep into the realm of pseudoscience.
From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2025
In 1909, Johannsen, coining the word gene, had declared it “free of any hypothesis.”
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
