a. (sb.) That is worth, or costs, three-halfpence; often a depreciatory epithet of anything held in small esteem: paltry, vile, contemptible. Also sb. a three-halfpenny piece: see prec.
1552. Gilpin, Serm., in Life, etc. (1636), 258. A great number … keep them [the livings] as their owne lands, and give some three halfe-peny Priest a Curates wages.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1287/1. To let it perish in threehalfepenie pamphlets, and so die in obliuion.
1638. Sanderson, Serm. (1657), 142. We laugh’t at the silliness of the poor Indians … for parting with a massie lump of Gold-ore for a three halfpenny knife.
1726–31. Tindal, Rapin’s Hist. Eng., XVII. (1743), II. 157. The Three Half-penny Piece (coined by this queen only).
1898. G. B. Rawlings, Brit. Coinage, 66. The threehalfpennies, pennies and threefarthings have as their obverse legend E D G Rosa sine spina. Ibid., 200. William IV also coined silver three-halfpenny pieces for Ceylon and the West Indies.
