Other forms: shillings
A shilling was a former British coin worth a twentieth of a pound. Two and six, a shilling a week, the king's shilling.
It was twelve pence, and there were twenty to the pound, which is the arithmetic everybody born after 1971 finds impossible. Taking the king's shilling meant enlisting, since the coin sealed the bargain.
1nounshillingA former British coin worth a twentieth of a pound.
“My grandfather remembered paying a shilling for a bag of sweets as a boy.”
shilling is a coin.
Old English scilling names the coin, from a Germanic root.
Middle English
schilling
English, today
shilling
From Middle English schilling. From Middle English schilling, shilling, from Old English sċilling, from Proto-West Germanic skilling, from Proto-Germanic skillingaz, equivalent to skill + -ing. a doublet of scalding and schilling. Compare typologically рубль (akin to руби́ть), полти́на, полти́нник (akin to tęti).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA