operated by, or containing machines operated by, inserting a coin or coins into a slot: a coin laundry.
–verb (used with object)
7.
to make (coinage) by stamping metal: The mint is coining pennies.
8.
to convert (metal) into coinage: The mint used to coin gold into dollars.
9.
to make; invent; fabricate: to coin an expression.
10.
Metalworking. to shape the surface of (metal) by squeezing between two dies. Compare emboss(def. 3).
–verb (used without object)
11.
BritishInformal. to counterfeit, esp. to make counterfeit money.
—Idioms
12.
coin money, Informal. to make or gain money rapidly: Those who own stock in that restaurant chain are coining money.
13.
pay someone back in his or her own coin, to reciprocate or behave toward in a like way, esp. inamicably; retaliate: If they persist in teasing you, pay them back in their own coin.
14.
the other side of the coin, the other side, aspect, or point of view; alternative consideration.
[Origin: 1300–50; ME coyn(e), coygne < AF; MF coin, cuigne wedge, corner, die < L cuneus wedge]
coin, piece of metal, usually a disk of gold, silver, nickel, bronze, copper, aluminum, or a combination of such metals, stamped by authority of a government as a guarantee of its real or exchange value and used as money. Coinage was probably invented independently in Lydia or in the Aegean Islands and in China before 700 B.C. The earliest known example is an electrum coin (c.700 B.C.) of Lydia. The first U.S. mint was established in 1792. Mottoes used on many U.S. coins are "E Pluribus Unum" (1795) and "In God We Trust" (1864). Early coins were die-struck by hand and showed many individual variations. Standardized coins date from the use of a mill and screw machine (invented c.1561). Coins are usually stamped from rolled metal blanks, then milled. The final product bears a design impressed upon it between the upper and lower dies of a coining press. Milled or lettered edges have been used since the 17th cent. to discourage the removal of slivers of metal, especially from gold or silver coins. No gold coins have circulated in the United States since 1934, when the domestic gold standard was abandoned. Until 1965, silver was used in the minting of dimes and quarters, but by the 1980s silver had disappeared from American coinage altogether. In the mid-1990s, the European Union developed a common currency for its members. The new currency, called the euro, was inaugurated in 1999; coins and notes went into circulation in 2002, replacing the currencies of most EU members (see European Monetary System). Canada introduced the first colored coin for circulation in 2004; it was a quarter featuring a poppy. See also numismatics.
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