death penny

English

WOTD – 11 November 2025

Etymology

A Roman skull with a Charon’s obol or death penny (noun sense 2), in this case a dupondius of Antoninus Pius dating to c. 140–144 C.E., in its mouth.[n 1]
A memorial plaque or death penny (noun sense 3) commemorating Robert Blakeley, a private of the British Army’s Middlesex Regiment, who died on 19 February 1918.

From death +‎ penny. Noun sense 3 (“memorial plaque”) refers to its superficial resemblance to the one-penny coin (which was much smaller) in circulation in the United Kingdom at the time.

Pronunciation

Noun

death penny (plural death pennies)

  1. (historical, usually in the plural) A coin placed on the eyelid of a deceased person to keep the eye closed.
    • 1897, Riccardo Stephens, “Ad Finem”, in The Jubilee Book of the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh: [Philosophical Institution] […], →OCLC, page 61:
      Afterwards the other seemed to die too, the breath leaving his body, the blood ebbing from his cheek, until his enemy came and stood one day looking down upon him, while he looked back from half-closed eyes, upon which they had already put death pennies, to keep down the lids.
    • [1926], R[obert] Thurston Hopkins, The Literary Landmarks of Devon & Cornwall, London: C. Palmer, →OCLC, page 179:
      He told me how in the oldest graves "death pennies," once used to close the eyes of the corpse, are found.
    • 2002, Elizabeth Chadwick, The Winter Mantle, London: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 503:
      His hands fumbled, and his eyelids suddenly felt as if someone had weighed them down with death pennies.
  3. (Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Synonym of Charon's obol (“a coin placed in or on the mouth of a deceased person as a bribe or payment for Charon, the ferryman of Hades”).
    • 1863, G[eorge] J[ohn] Whyte-Melville, “Winged Words”, in The Gladiators: A Tale of Rome and Judæa. […], volume I (Eros), London: Longman, Green, Longmans, Roberts, & Green, →OCLC, page 282:
      You will not see him now, till a pinch of dust has been sprinkled on your brow, and the death-penny put into your mouth. Then, when you have crossed the dark river, he will be waiting for you on the other side.
    • [1873], Emma Leslie [pseudonym; Emma Boultwood], “The Attack on the Romans”, in The Captives, London: Sunday School Union […]; New York, N.Y.: Thomas Nelson & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 32:
      "They will escape you yet, if you are not careful, and be off to their native woods." The soldier shook his head. "I have tied them fast," he said, "and they have no death-penny in their mouths to pay the ferryman to take them over the dark river."
    • 1877, Emma Maria Pearson, Louisa Elisabeth McLaughlin, “Life Up-country in Servia”, in Service in Servia under the Red Cross, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, pages 192–193:
      A short service was hurried over; the small coffin was brought forward; the body was taken off the bier and laid in it. The priest poured some red wine on it, which stained the pure white robe, and placed bread, salt, and some small pieces of copper money beside it. […] [I]t is a strange remnant of pagan customs; and the death penny—that was to pay Charon for the passage over the Styx.
  5. (UK, World War I, numismatics, informal) The memorial plaque, a circular bronze plaque presented to the next of kin of British Empire personnel killed in World War I.
    Synonyms: dead man's penny, widow's penny
    • 2011, Richard van Emden, “‘Least Said, Soonest Mended’”, in The Quick and the Dead: Fallen Soldiers and Their Families in the Great War, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, published 2012, →ISBN, page 316:
      Government-inspired tokens of appreciation, such as the so-called ‘death penny’ or bronze plaque announced in 1918 and finally distributed in 1919 to next of kin, were not always accepted with the gratitude expected. Violet Baker had lost her beloved husband, Sam, and she was in no mood to be thankful. ‘My mother was given the death penny and I know that she was disgusted,’ recalled Violet. ‘“That for a husband,” she said.’
    • 2015, Gavin Hughes, “The Cost and Legacy, 1914–1918”, in Fighting Irish: The Irish Regiments in the First World War, Sallins, County Kildare, Ireland: Merrion Press, →ISBN:
      For those who did not come back, many families were to receive a bronze memorial plaque—the ‘Death Penny’—and an illuminated scroll, purporting to be from King George V. […] [T]hey became the tangible last abiding memento that their loved ones had ever existed in this world and that their exit from it had been, somehow, for a greater, nobler, reason. It is perhaps for exactly this reason that, within many Irish Nationalist homes, the death pennies, scrolls or medal groups were bitterly disregarded or sadly put away in drawers, not to be seen until many years later.
    • 2018, Jonathan Evershed, Ghosts of the Somme: Commemoration and Culture War in Northern Ireland, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, →ISBN:
      I think for most people it's the starting point: it's the grandmother telling you a story about the great-uncle that you never knew, or the photograph on the wall, or the death penny.
    • 2024, Ann-Marie Foster, “Extending Legacy”, in Family Mourning After War and Disaster in Twentieth-century Britain, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 205:
      One man briefly told the story of his uncle, writing, 'I know my dad cherished Charlie's memory. The older of my brothers has Charles as a middle name and Charlie's "Death Penny" was always displayed at our family home.'

Translations

Notes

  1. ^ From the collection of the Prehistory Museum of Valencia in Valencia, Spain.

Further reading

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