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FARTHING

Volume 8 · 128 words · 1810 Edition

small English copper coin, amounting to one-fourth of a penny. It was anciently called fourthing, as being the fourth of the integer or penny.

Farthing of Gold, a coin used in ancient times, containing in value the fourth part of a noble, or 20d. silver. It is mentioned in the stat. 9 Hen. V. cap. 7, where it is enacted, that there shall be good and just weight of the noble, half-noble, and farthing of gold.

Farthing of Land seems to differ from Farding-deal. For in a survey-book of the manor of West-Hampton in Devonshire, there is an entry thus: A. B. holds six farthings of land at 126l. per annum. So that the farthing of land must have been a considerable quantity, far more than a rood.