Plack (coin)
Not to be confused with Placard or Plaque (disambiguation).
A plack (Scottish Gaelic: plang) was an ancient Scottish coin of the value of four Scots pennies or by 1707 one third of an English penny.[1] It appears in the old song:
- A’ that e’er my Jeanie had,
- My Jeanie had, my Jeanie had,
- A’ that e’er my Jeanie had
- Was ae bawbie
- There’s your plack, and my plack,
- And your plack, and my plack,
- And Jeanie’s bawbie.
The word is probably derived from the ancient Flemish coin, a plaquette, current before the introduction into the Netherlands of the French money reckoned by francs and centimes.
It can be found in the works of Robert Burns too:
- Nae howdie gets a social night,
- or plack frae them
- (Scotch Drink)
- Stretch a joint to catch a plack,
- Abuse a brother to his back.
- (To Gavin Hamilton)
See also
- Bawbee
- Bodle
- Pound Scots
- Scottish coinage
- Buy Broom Besoms
References
- MacKay, Charles – A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch (1888)
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