Word.ws English Dictionary

quarter farthing

quarter farthing noun: a British coin, produced for circulation in Ceylon 1839–1853, which, at a face value of ⅟₁₆d. (£⅟₃₈₄₀), is the lowest denomination of coin ever minted for the United Kingdom.

Noun

quarter farthing (plural quarter farthings)

  1. (historical) A British coin, produced for circulation in Ceylon 1839–1853, which, at a face value of ⅟₁₆d. (£⅟₃₈₄₀), is the lowest denomination of coin ever minted for the United Kingdom.
    • [‘]The score, however, was only 10 thalers, 4 groschen, 6 pfennigs’ (30 shillings, 5 pence, and 2 or perhaps 3 quarter-farthings), ‘for what I had run-up in eight weeks[.]’1750 June–August, Thomas Carlyle, in The Works of Thomas Carlyle III (2010), ed. Henry Duff Traill, page 257

Forms of quarter farthing

pluralquarter farthings
alternative formquarter-farthing

Questions about quarter farthing

What does quarter farthing mean?
Quarter farthing means a British coin, produced for circulation in Ceylon 1839–1853, which, at a face value of ⅟₁₆d. (£⅟₃₈₄₀), is the lowest denomination of coin ever minted for the United Kingdom.
What part of speech is quarter farthing?
Quarter farthing is a noun.
What is the plural of quarter farthing?
The plural of quarter farthing is quarter farthings.

Words near quarter farthing in the dictionary

  1. quarter days
  2. quarter deck
  3. quarter decks
  4. quarter eagle
  5. quarter eagles
  6. quarter farthing
  7. quarter farthings
  8. quarter final
  9. quarter finals
  10. quarter glass
  11. quarter glasses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quarter farthing (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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