coinage
(ˈkɔɪnɪdʒ)
Forms: see coin (also 5 cunage, 6 kownnage).
[a. OF. coignaige, f. coignier to coin: see -age.]
1. The action or process of coining money. b. The right of coining money.
| c 1380 Sir Ferumb. 5481 Four floryns of gold of god coygnage. 1494 Fabyan vii. 401 Dampned certayne coynes..and caused theym to be broughte vnto newe coynage. 1523 Skelton Garl. Laurel 611 Fals forgers of mony for kownnage [ed. 1568 coinage] atteintid. 1594 Plat Jewell-Ho. iii. Chem. Conclus. 86 Ending in cosenage, quoinage, or Capistro. 1648 D. Jenkins Wks. The Table, The power of coynadge in the King. 1725 Swift Drapier's Lett. Wks. 1755 V. ii. 41 If this coinage had been in Ireland, and granted to persons of this kingdom. 1869 J. G. Hubbard in Gold Coinage Controversy 31 If the mintage be sensibly increased beyond the cost of coinage, you provoke private coinage. |
2. concr. Coins collectively, coin; a system of coins in use or in currency; the currency. decimal coinage: a system of coins, each denomination or named value of which is ten times that of the next smaller: see decimal.
| 1467 J. Paston in Paston Lett. No. 573 II. 305 Daube nor I may no mor with owt coynage. 1577 Harrison England ii. xxv. (1877) i. 366 Chaines of siluer..redie..to be melted into coinage. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iv. ii. 9 Ile answere the Coynage. 1672 Petty Pol. Anat. (1691) 69 Men make Vessels of coyned Silver, if they can gain by the Workmanship enough to defray the Destruction of the Coynage. 1841 Elphinstone Hist. Ind. I. 471 They are often square, a shape of which there is no example in any other Grecian coinage. 1876 Fawcett Pol. Econ. iii. iii. 359 The Mint is not permitted to issue more than a certain amount of silver coinage. Mod. The bronze coinage was issued in 1860. |
b. Any currency or medium of exchange. Also fig.
| a 1839 Praed Poems (1864) I. 24 In the coinage of your golden smiles. 1856 Woodward Mollusca 305 The N. American Indians used to make coinage (wampum) of the sea-worn fragments of Venus mercenaria. |
† 3. ellipt. (See quot.) Obs.
| a 1734 North Lives III. 166 A law..called the coinage. This was a certain tax laid to pay for coining money. |
4. The official stamping of blocks of tin (see coin v. 3); the right of doing this, formerly a privilege of certain towns in Cornwall and Devon. Also attrib. as in coinage house, coinage town.
| 1495 Act 11 Hen. VII, c. 4 §12 Weightis apperteynyng..to the Cunage of Tynne within the counties of Cornewall and Devonshire. 1538 Leland Itin. III. 22 (Hailstoun). 1577 Harrison England ii. xxv. (1877) i. 365 There is also coignage of tin holden yearelie at..Midsummer and Michaelmas in the west countrie; which..I supposed to haue beene of monie of the said mettall..Howbeit..I find it to be nothing so, but an office onlie erected for the prince..and such blocks of tin as haue passed the hands of his officers, are marked with an especiall stampe. 1708 Lond. Gaz. No. 4458/1 At the Coynage now held at Truroe. 1762 Borlase in Phil. Trans. LII. 507 The driver of a plough..laden with tin, for Penzance Coinage. 1810 in Risdon's Surv. Devon 405 The Stannators.. were elected by the Mayors..of certain Towns..called Coinage Towns. |
5. fig. The (deliberate) formation of a new word, etc.; the fabrication of something specious.
| 1693 Dryden Juvenal Ded. (J.), Unnecessary coinage as well as unnecessary revival of words, runs into affectation. 1727 Swift Art of Polit. Lying, Whether the right of coinage of Political Lyes be wholly in the government. 1787 Gentl. Mag. Dec. 1081/2 Milton..has enriched our language with some epithets..of his own coinage. a 1834 Coleridge Method in Encycl. Metr. (1849) 15 The Ancients, as well as the Moderns, had their machinery for the extemporaneous coinage of intellect. 1876 Freeman Norm. Conq. V. xxv. 580 Words of modern coinage. |
6. concr. That which is made, devised, or invented, an invention; e.g. a coined word. (Often used disparagingly, in implied contrast with ‘current word’; cf. coin v. 5.)
| 1602 Shakes. Ham. iii. iv. 137 This is the very coynage of your Braine. 1640 Sir E. Dering Proper Sacrif. (1644) 67 Your last words..are..the coynage of your own brain. 1873 F. Hall Mod. Eng. 59 Why might not Spenser try his hand at coining a word? Landor himself has ventured new coinages enough. 1879 Farrar St. Paul II. 462 note, Ἐθελοθρησκεία, a happy coinage of St. Paul's. |