shilling
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English:
shilling
Detailed etymology
definitions
noun
- (dated) 20 cents; a 20-cent coin; a small coin of loose change in general
Granddad said that a two fresh baskets of char siew pau from the itinerant hawker who used to ply this street cost less than a a shilling when he was a child.
usage notes
Dated; chiefly used by the older generation of people who were born in the era when Singapore was still a British colony, and the years just after that. As there was never a 12-cent coin issued in Singapore, the term came to mean a 20-cent coin instead (although if one were to take 1/20 of a dollar as the definition, it might have rather been the 5-cent coin).