1. lit. The making of coin; minting.
1548. Wriothesley, Chron. (1877), II. 7. A French man being prisoner … for quoyning of testornes.
1605. Shaks., Lear, IV. vi. 83. They cannot touch me for coyning [Ff. crying]. I am the King himselfe.
1691. Locke, Money, Wks. 1727, II. 68. The Coining of Silver, or making Money of it, is the ascertaining of its Quantity by a publick Mark, the better to fit it for Commerce.
1876. Mathews, Coinage, i. 7. The hammer and die continued to be the only instruments used in coining until the middle of the 16th century.
2. fig. Deliberate invention, fabrication.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), II. 123. He was therefore forced to fall to coining, and was several Months before he could light on one [Name], that pleased him perfectly.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 285. There are in Milton several Words of his own Coining.
1858. Doran, Crt. Fools, 96. The coining of bitter jests.
3. attrib. and Comb., as coining-house, -irons, -press, -stamps.
1529. W. Frankeleyn, in Fiddes, Wolsey (1726), II. 168. We must have many moo coyning yrons.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2352/4. One Valentine Cogswell had set up a Coining-Press. Ibid., No. 2366/4. Three pair of Coyning Stamps.
1824. ‘R. Stuart,’ Hist. Steam Engine, 187. Constructing coining apparatus for the Peruvian mint.
1880. Mackintosh, Hist. Civiliz. Scotl., II. xix. 337. They came to the Coining-house and gave security.
