pennyとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From Middle English penny, peny, from 古期英語 peniġ, penniġ, penning (“penny”), from Proto-West Germanic *panning, from Proto-Germanic *panningaz, of uncertain origin (see that page for theories). Doublet of pfennig.

発音

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛ.ni/
• 韻: -ɛni
• (in compounds like "twopenny", dated) IPA^(key): /pəni/

名詞

penny (plural pennies or pence or (廃れた用法) pens)

1. (historical) In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a unit of currency worth ¹⁄₂₄₀ of a pound sterling or Irish pound before decimalisation, or a copper coin worth this amount. Abbreviation: d.
   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0056:

     Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

2. In the United Kingdom, a unit of currency worth ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a pound sterling, or a copper coin worth this amount. Abbreviation: p.
3. (historical) In Ireland, a coin worth ¹⁄₁₀₀ of an Irish pound before the introduction of the euro. Abbreviation: p.
4. In the US and (formerly) Canada, a one-cent coin, worth ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a dollar. Abbreviation: ¢.
   • 2015 November 22, “Pennies”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 35, HBO:

     Holy shit! A hundred and eleven pennies! At that point, that dog had more Lincoln in him than Mary Todd.

5. In various countries, a small-denomination copper or brass coin.
6. A unit of nail size, said to be either the cost per 100 nails, or the number of nails per penny. Abbreviation: d.
7. Money in general.

   to turn an honest penny

   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene ii]:

     What penny hath Rome borne, / What men provided, what munition sent?

使用する際の注意点

The plural pence is only used as a unit of currency. The plural pennies is used for other cases, in particular when referring to multiple individual coins.

Compounds (twopence, threepence, fourpence かつ so on up to tenpence, but not eleven pence または any higher) should be read with the stress on the first syllable and a reduced /ə/ in pence. Thus /ˈtʌpəns/, /ˈθɹʌpəns/, /ˈfɔːpəns/ and so on.

同意語

• (¹⁄₂₄₀ of a pound sterling): old penny
• (¹⁄₁₀₀ of a pound sterling): new penny (old-fashioned)
• (one-cent coin または its value): cent

派生語

派生した語

参考

• pence § Descendants

動詞

penny (三人称単数 現在形 pennies, 現在分詞 pennying, 過去形および過去分詞形 pennied)

1. (slang) To jam a door shut by inserting pennies between the doorframe and the door.

   Zach and Ben had only been at college for a week when their door was pennied by the girls down the hall.

2. (electronics) To circumvent the tripping of an electrical circuit breaker by the dangerous practice of inserting a coin in place of a fuse in a fuse socket.
3. (Oxbridge slang) During a meal or as part of a drinking game, to drop a penny in a person's drink such that they must finish it (または some such variation thereof); commonly associated with crewdates at Oxford and swaps at Cambridge.

   You got pennied! Down it, fresher.

参考

• d
• cent
• the penny drops

アナグラム

• Pynne