Word.ws English Dictionary

½d

½d is the abbreviation of halfpenny.

Meaning of halfpenny

Noun

halfpenny (plural halfpennies or halfpence)

  1. (UK, also, attributive, historical) A discontinued English (later British) coin worth half of one penny (old or new).
    • There vvere none principal, they vvere all like one another, as halfe pence are, euerie one fault ſeeming monſtrous, til his fellovv-fault came to match it.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    Synonyms:
    ½d, ½p
  2. (Ireland, Scotland, also, attributive, broadly, historical) A similar coin formerly used in Ireland and Scotland.
  3. (UK, also, attributive, historical) An amount of money that the English (later British) coin was worth.
    • There ſhall be in England, ſeuen halfe peny Loaues ſold for a peny: the three hoop'd pot, ſhall haue ten hoopes, and I vvill make it Fellony to drink ſmall Beere.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  4. (Ireland, Scotland, also, attributive, broadly, historical) An amount of money that the Irish or Scottish coin was worth.
  5. (broadly, historical) A postage stamp worth half of one penny.
  6. (Australia, US, archaic, broadly) A usually semicircular earmark made in the ear of a livestock animal.

See all 8 meanings of halfpenny

Forms of ½d

alternative form1/2d

Questions about ½d

What is ½d the abbreviation of?
½d is the abbreviation of halfpenny.

Words near ½d in the dictionary

  1. ° Celsius
  2. ° Fahrenheit
  3. µin
  4. ·
  5. ¼ h
  6. ½d
  7. ß
  8. à bas
  9. à bouche
  10. à contre-coeur
  11. à contrecoeur

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ½d (page history and authors); halfpenny (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “½d.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%C2%BDd. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.