colloq. abbrev. of SOVEREIGN sb.
1850. New Monthly Mag., XC. 310. As to the purse, there wern’t above three or four sovs in it.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, I. v. She gave me half-a-sov this half.
1883. Harper’s Mag., March, 647/2. I slipped a sov. in the paw of the major-general.
