groat
See also: Groat
English
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ɡɹoʊt/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɡɹəʊt/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - IPA(key): (obsolete) /ɡɹɔːt/[1]
- Rhymes: -əʊt
Etymology 1
From Middle English grot, from Old English grot, from Proto-West Germanic *grot, from Proto-Germanic *grutą, related to *greutą. More at grit, grout.
Noun
groat (countable and uncountable, plural groats)
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
hulled grain
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See also
Etymology 2
Possibly from Middle Dutch groot, the Old French gros Tournois (“a coin of Tours”), gros being from Medieval Latin denarius grossus (“large coin”). Related to German Groschen.
Noun
groat (plural groats)
- (archaic or historical) Any of various old coins of England and Scotland.
- 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act I:
- The Widdow that hath but a pan of braſſe,
And ſcarſe a houſe to hide her head,
Sometimes no penny to buy her bread,
Muſt pay her Landlord many a groat,
Or twil be puld out of her throat:
- Any unit of currency worth four pence.
- A historical English coin representing such a unit: a silver coin worth four English pennies, still minted as one of the set of Maundy coins.
- Synonym: fourpence
- c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published 1633, →OCLC, Act I:
- The needy groom, that never finger'd groat,
Would make a miracle of thus much coin …
- A proverbial small sum; a whit or jot.
Derived terms
Translations
English silver four penny coin
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See also
- Groat (grain) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- Groat (coin) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
References
- ^ Jespersen, Otto (1909), A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)[1], volume I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 10.81, page 315.