GROAT, an English money of account, equal to fourpence. Other nations, as the Dutch, Poles, Saxons, Bohemians, and French, have likewise their groats, groots, grechen, gros, and the like. In the Saxon times, no silver coin bigger than a penny was struck in England, nor after the Conquest, till the reign of Edward III., who, about the year 1351, coined groates or great pieces, which went for fourpence each; and so the matter stood till the reign of Henry VIII., who, in 1504, first coined shillings.