Definition of "half-crown" []

• A coin formerly used in Great Britain, worth two shillings and sixpence. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "At the same time -- fitting accompaniment to the over-bold words -- Peter saw a half-crown, a round, solid, terrible _half-crown_, pressed into Urquhart's unsuspecting hand."
• "Where did we queue to buy the commemorative crown pieces, the silver five-bobs that suddenly made sense of the term "half-crown", of which they were the vanished ancestors?"
• "The great man had smiled at him then, and - perhaps mistaking him for a beggar himself - handed him a coin, a half-crown showing the profile of the mad old Lizard King, George III, which Orphan had kept ever since for good luck."