Definition
A unit of English currency equal to one-twelfth of a shilling, and one two-hundred-fortieth of a pound sterling. During the colonial period in America, each colony adopted monetary systems derived from the English model — pounds, shillings, and pence — but the penny varied in value from colony to colony, reflecting local monetary conditions and the absence of a unified colonial currency. After American independence, the penny was absorbed into the new decimal system as the cent, equal to one-hundredth of a dollar, and the term ceased to carry distinct legal currency in United States law except in historical contexts.
In English law, the penny carried standardized weight as well as monetary value. Bouvier notes the penny at approximately one-third of an ounce avoirdupois, with the halfpenny at one-fifth and the farthing at one-tenth — reflecting the penny's historical role as both coin and unit of measure in commercial and legal transactions.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To jam a door shut by inserting pennies between the doorframe and the door; to circumvent an electrical circuit breaker by inserting a coin in place of a fuse; during a meal or drinking game, to drop a penny in a person's drink. Also, informally, the one-cent coin of the United States.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Denoting pound weight per thousand, used in compound descriptions of nail sizes — as in "tenpenny nails," meaning nails of which one thousand weigh ten pounds.
The gap between common and legal meaning is substantial. In legal and historical sources, "penny" refers to a specific currency unit with defined weight and exchange value, not to a physical coin used in pranks or construction trades. The nail-gauge usage in Webster's — tenpenny, sixpenny — is a direct survival of the legal monetary meaning applied to commercial standardization, and researchers encountering that usage in historical commercial documents should understand it as a pricing convention, not a monetary payment term.
Common Confusion
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry under PENNY redirects to "Tithings and Towns (synonymous with vills)" with a citation to Blackstone — an apparent mislabeling or cross-reference error in that edition. Researchers should not interpret this as a substantive legal definition of penny. The connection, if any, may relate to "penny" appearing in compound legal terms such as PENNYWEIGHT or in administrative fee schedules associated with tithings, but the Rapalje & Lawrence entry as presented does not establish a meaningful legal definition for the standalone term. Treat it as a cataloging anomaly.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with colonial American legal documents, probate records, debt instruments, or contract disputes will encounter penny denominations that do not map neatly onto modern currency. The critical trap: a sum stated in "pence" in a Virginia document does not represent the same value as the same sum in a Massachusetts document from the same period. Bouvier's explicit note that the penny "varied in value in the different colonies" is the essential warning — colonial monetary pluralism means that nominal amounts must be read against the issuing colony's monetary standard.
In English legal history, the penny appears in fee schedules, court costs, statutory fines, and land measurement contexts (as in "pennyland," a unit of land value assessment). Researchers should be alert to compound terms built on penny — pennyweight (a unit of troy weight used in precious metals law), pennyland, and penny-rate — which appear in property, taxation, and commercial law sources independently of the currency meaning.
The nail-gauge usage (tenpenny, sixpenny) appears in construction contracts, estate inventories, and supply agreements throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is not a monetary term in context but a standardized trade classification derived from historical pricing conventions. Misreading it as a currency amount in a contract would produce an error.
After American independence, the penny effectively disappears from U.S. federal legal usage as a distinct term, replaced by "cent." State law archives and early republic commercial records may use both interchangeably during the transition period roughly between 1776 and 1800.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Bouvier agree on the core definition: one-twelfth of a shilling, used in England and colonial America. Bouvier adds the most research value by noting colonial variation in value and providing the physical weight specifications — useful for researchers working in commodity valuation or weight-based legal disputes.
All three substantive sources treat penny primarily as a historical term, with no attempt to connect it to contemporary American legal usage, which is appropriate. The historical dictionaries are silent on the nail-gauge convention, on pennyweight as a distinct legal term, and on the post-independence transition — gaps researchers should supply from monetary history sources rather than legal dictionaries alone.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is anomalous and should be disregarded for purposes of defining this term.
Jurisdictional Note
The term has no operative legal meaning in modern United States federal or state law. Its significance is entirely historical, varying by colonial jurisdiction before 1776 and by English legal context in sources of any period.