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I've just found out that a penny can be called a win in slang. It appears to be only used in British slang, and perhaps in Irish too.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang mentions below and gives the earliest citation from 1535:

win n.
also winn, wyn
[origin unknown, but Vaux suggests, without further explanation, an abbr. of Winchester; Ribton-Turner, A History of Vagrants (1887), suggests synon. Erse pinghin, Manx ping]

1. a penny.
c.1535 [UK] R. Copland Hye way to the Spyttel House Eiii: For the bene bonse my watch hath a wyn.

However, GDoS also offers a second meaning in US English as 'cent':

2. (US) a cent (cf. penny n. (1)).

1859 [US] Matsell Vocabulum 96: win A cent.

If 'win' is an abbreviation of Winchester, how so? If not, why might it be referred to as 'win'? Could it be related to winning money, winnings?

Note: OED also states the same for the origin: "Origin obscure; quot. 1819 suggests that it may be short for Winchester." OED does not state that the word is obsolete.

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    A penny could be called a win; it appears that this bit of slang is long since obsolete.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Sep 9 at 11:27
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    I based my comment on the fact that Green's latest example is from 1881 and that I have never heard of it in my (fairly wide) reading.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Sep 9 at 11:40
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    Fair point. OED gives the sense of "Gain, acquisition, profit; also, advantage, benefit." for the noun win as obsolete, but not for the sense of "a penny". OED's latest citation for this sense is from 1900. Perhaps it fell out of use but not completely. It is harder to find written evidence for slang.
    – ermanen
    Commented Sep 9 at 11:56
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    @KateBunting I agree in 75 years of reading I've never heard this usage. I suggest that the dictionary not tagging it as obsolete is an oversite.
    – Peter Jennings
    Commented Sep 9 at 13:41
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    @phoog I’ve personally contacted the OED team about this and am awaiting their response also.
    – ermanen
    Commented Sep 10 at 10:02

2 Answers 2

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This answer is much helped by the many comments on the OP's question that triggered a memory "wasn't there a mint at Winchester?". A search for "Royal mint Winchester" brings up this information from the Hampshire Cultural Trust website

For three hundred and fifty years Winchester had its own mint striking coins under royal control. The first coins to carry the mint-signature of Winchester (ǷIN or ǷINC - The Anglo-Saxon wen, or Ƿ, being equivalent to the modern W) were issued at the very end of Alfred's reign probably around 895. The mint's final period of activity was in 1248-50 during the reign of Henry III.

So coins minted at Winchester had "Win" stamped in their design and would almost certainly be called "a win".

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  • We have a winner!
    – Barmar
    Commented Sep 10 at 0:36
  • So why would penny be called a win, unless only pennies were minted in Winchester?
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Sep 10 at 0:41
  • @WeatherVane I can only speculate. They only struck pennies (unlikely). It was a the most common coin (possibly). It was a hangover from when more coins were called "win". Other coins had different nicknames.
    – Peter Jennings
    Commented Sep 10 at 1:00
  • Win-win! It took us on a journey through history.
    – ermanen
    Commented Sep 10 at 5:30
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Win, meaning 'a penny' (or 'an old penny'), seems to have been primarily used in Scouse (Liverpool English) but has since fallen out of use. It may still persist as dialectal slang. Here is the entry for win from the book The Liverpool English Dictionary: A Record of the Language of Liverpool 1850–2015 by Tony Crowley:

Win (n.): a penny. "Win", penny' (Jones 1935:5). 'The use of "meg" for halfpenny and "win" for penny, seems to be dying out' (Farrell 1950b: 4). "Fudge" for a farthing, "meg" for a half-penny and "win" for a penny are no longer current coin' (Whittington-Egan 1955a: 6). "Fudge" for a farthing, "meg" for a half-penny and "win" for a penny ... flourished in the [18]80s and [18]90s' (Jones 1955: 4). 'Win. One old penny (1d). Liverpool' (Howarth 1985: n.p.). Recorded from 1.16c.; derivation unclear.

The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang (by Eric Partridge) mentions the use of win in late 19th and 20th century in Ireland and hence U.S:

win, wing, winn, whin(n)
*, but gen. the first or the third. A penny: c. (-1567): resp. C.17-20, late C.19–20 (mostly in Ireland and hence U.S.), C.17-20, C.19-20. Harman, Dekker, B.E., Grose, Vaux (Winchesten by 1900), 'Jon Bee' (who defines as a half-penny), H., Flynt (wing). Perhaps abbr. Winchester. 2. (win, and for senses 3, 4.) A victory: (sports and games) coll: from ca 1860. 3. A gain; gen. pl, (mostly monetary) gains: coll: from ca 1890. Perhaps abbr. winning(s).

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