coins

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of coin.

   He sorted the foreign coins by country and date.

   A pile of gold coins gleamed at the bottom of the chest.

   Note

   A plural that covers only some of coin's meanings. It counts the countable ones: pieces of currency, casino tokens and the cards of the tarot suit. The slang use for money in general is uncountable, so it stays singular. Someone has coin, not coins. The same spelling also serves as the verb form, and the reader tells them apart by whether something is doing the coining.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of coin.

   The author coins a fresh term whenever existing language falls short.

   Every generation coins slang that baffles the one before it.

   Note

   Every job the verb does passes through this form: a mint coins metal, a writer coins a phrase, a booming business coins money. The middle meaning does most of the work today. It usually takes an object like term, word or phrase. Because it shares its spelling with the plural noun, look for a singular subject before it.

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