Category:Fippenny bit

Fip"pen*ny bit` ( or ). Etym: [Corruption of five penny bit.]

Defn: The Spanish half real, or one sixteenth of a dollar, -- so called in Pennsylvania and the adjacent States. [Obs.]

Note: Before the act of Congress, Feb. 21, 1857, caused the adoption of decimal coins and the withdrawal of foreign coinage from circulation, this coin passed currently for 6fourpence ha'penny or fourpence; in New York a sixpence; in Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc., a fip; and in Louisiana, a picayune.