Fippenny bit

Fip"pen*ny bit` (? or ?). [Corruption of five penny bit.] The Spanish half real, or one sixteenth of a dollar, - - so called in Pennsylvania and the adjacent States. [Obs.]

☞ Before the act of Congress, Feb. 21, 1857, caused the adoption of decimal coins and the withdrawal of foreign coinage from circulation, this coin passed currently for 6¼ cents, and was called in New England a fourpence ha'penny or fourpence; in New York a sixpence; in Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc., a fip; and in Louisiana, a picayune.