Halfpenny (½d)
Modern equivalent
0.5 old pence ≈ £0.002 (modern)
A historic British coin worth half of an old penny.
Written ha’penny and worth half an old penny, this was for most of its life the coin that actually bought things: a newspaper, a bag of sweets, a box of matches. It outlasted the farthing by nine years, surviving until 1969, and was then promptly reincarnated as the decimal halfpenny — a quite different and much resented coin, worth half a new penny rather than half an old one, which lasted only until 1984. The word also gave English the halfpennyworth, or ha’porth, as in spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar: an amount so small that economising on it is absurd.