ˈmint-drop
[f. mint n.2 + drop n.]
1. ‘A sugar-plum flavoured with peppermint’ (Cent. Dict. 1890).
2. U.S. slang. With pun on mint n.1: A coin.
| 1835 Hawthorne Passages from Note-Bks. in Atlantic Monthly (1866) Jan. 3/2 The bar-keeper had one of Benton's mint drops for a bosom-brooch! 1837 Congress. Globe 29 Sept. App. 339/3 [The money flowed to Mobile] by the aid of ‘the far-famed Specie circular’, in ‘mint drops’ and ‘hard currency’. 1840 J. P. Kennedy Quodlibet 106 [There's] Specie Circlor and Mint Drops, and the Lord knows what. 1872 Schele de Vere Americanisms 291 When the Hon. T. H. Benton..put his whole strength forward..to introduce a gold currency, he accidentally called the latter mint-drops, with a slight attempt at a pun... For many years gold coins were largely known as Benton's mint-drops. |