Word.ws English Dictionary

groat

/ɡɹəʊt/US/ɡɹoʊt/

groat noun: hulled grain, chiefly hulled oats.

Noun (1)

groat (countable and uncountable, plural groats)

  1. (in plural) Hulled grain, chiefly hulled oats.

Noun (2)

groat (plural groats)

  1. (archaic, historical) Any of various old coins of England and Scotland.
    • 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:1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I
    1. (archaic, historical) Any unit of currency worth four pence.
    2. (archaic, historical) 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.
      • The needy groom, that never finger'd groat,
        Would make a miracle of thus much coin …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...
  2. A proverbial small sum; a whit or jot.

Proper noun capitalized: Groat

Groat (plural Groats)

  1. A surname.

Synonyms of groat

Forms of groat

Noun
pluralgroats
Proper noun
pluralGroats

Origin of groat

From Middle English grot, from Old English grot, from Proto-West Germanic *grot, from Proto-Germanic *grutą, related to *greutą. More at grit, grout.

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.

* As a Scottish surname, nickname from Old Norse grautr (“porridge”). Compare Grout. * Also as a Scottish surname, variant of Grote. * As a German, Dutch and Danish surname, variant of Groth, Groot, Grott, and Grad.

Words formed from groat

Words that rhyme with groat

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about groat

What does groat mean?
Groat means hulled grain, chiefly hulled oats.
What part of speech is groat?
Groat can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce groat?
Groat is pronounced /ɡɹoʊt/ (US).
What is the plural of groat?
The plural of groat is groats.

Words near groat in the dictionary

  1. groansome
  2. groanworthy
  3. groany
  4. Groarke
  5. Groarkes
  6. groat
  7. groatland
  8. groatlands
  9. groatless
  10. groats
  11. groatsworth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: groat (page history and authors); Groat (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-groat.wav.

Cite this entry: “groat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/groat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.