Is there a smaller form of British currency than pounds?
The coins that we have are 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, and £2. They did bring out a limited edition £5 coin ages ago, but no one uses it. The ‘p’ stands for pence, by the way, so we have pounds and pence. The one pence coin is often called a penny. We don’t have alternative names for the coins, like they do in the US (eg quarters, nickels, etc). Sometimes me and my friends call the copper 1p and 2ps “schrapnel’ (or however it’s spelt) but that’s more of a colloquial joke than anything. In the olden days, before decimalisation, we used to have farthings, halfpennies, thrupennies, etc. but they are no longer currency.
The smallest denomination of British currency is the penny. There are 100 pennies or pence (both correct plurals) in one pound. The coins currently in use worth less than a pound are 1p (one penny), 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p. Until the early 1980s there was also a half penny (ha’penny, pronounced “hape-nee”) coin, sometimes known as a “tiddler.” Nowadays, there are also £1 and £2 coins. The smallest note (bill) in common use in England and Wales is £5, £1 notes are still used in Scotland. The slang “quid” is very commonly used instead of “pound.” Additionally, many older people in Britain still refer to a shilling (or “bob” informally), which is 5 pence (or a 5 pence coin) in today’s currency. This comes from the system used before decimalisation in 1971 in which there were 20 shillings in a pound (the value of the pound was unchanged), and 12 “old pennies” in a shilling, hence 240 old pennies in a pound. The smallest denomination of currency I’m aware of in the old system is the farthi
