death penny

English

Etymology

(memorial plaque): Referencing its resemblance to the one-penny coins in circulation at the time.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈdɛθ ˌpɛni/
  • Audio (General American):(file)

Noun

death penny (plural death pennies)

  1. (World War I, informal) A circular, bronze memorial plaque presented to the next of kin of British Empire personnel killed in World War I.
    Synonym: dead man's penny
    • 2011, Richard van Emden, The Quick and the Dead: Fallen Soldiers and Their Families in the Great War‎[1], →ISBN:
      Violet Baker had lost her beloved husband, Sam, and she was in no mood to be thankful. 'My mother was given the death penny and I know that she was disgusted', she recalled. '"That for a husband", she said.'
    • 2015, Gavin Hughes, Fighting Irish: The Irish Regiments in the First World War‎[2], →ISBN:
      It is perhaps for exactly this reason that, within many Irish nationalist homes, the death pennies, scrolls or medal groups were bitterly disregarded or sadly put away in drawers, not to be seen until many years later.
    • 2018, Jonathan Evershed, Ghosts of the Somme: Commemoration and Culture War in Northern Ireland‎[3], →ISBN:
      I think for most people it's the starting point: it's the grandmother telling you a story about the great-uncle that you never knew, or the photograph on the wall, or the death penny.
    • 2024, Ann-Marie Foster, Family Mourning After War and Disaster in Twentieth-Century Britain‎[4], →ISBN:
      One man briefly told the story of his uncle, writing, 'I know my dad cherished Charlie's memory. The older of my brothers has Charles as a middle name and Charlie's "Death Penny" was always displayed at our family home.'
  2. (Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Synonym of Charon's obol.
    • 1873, Emma Leslie, The Captives‎[5], page 32:
      The soldier shook his head. "I have tied them fast," he said, "and they have no death-penny in their mouths to pay the ferryman to take them over the dark river."
    • 1877, B. Gibbons, “Servian Customs, Rites, and Legends”, in Edwin Paxton Hood, editor, The Argonaut‎[6], volume VII, number 49, page 40:
      If so, it is a strange remnant of Pagan customs; and the death penny—that was to pay Charon for the passage over the Styx.
    • 1892, George Whyte-Melville, The Gladiators‎[7], page 128:
      You will not see him now, till a pinch of dust has been sprinkled on your brow, and the death-penny put into your mouth. Then, when you have crossed the dark river, he will be waiting for you on the other side.
  3. (usually in the plural) A coin placed on the eyelid of a deceased person to keep the eye closed.
    • 1897, The Jubilee Book of the Philosophical Institution‎[8], page 60:
      Afterwards the other seemed to die too, the breath leaving his body, the blood ebbing from his cheek, until his enemy came and stood one day looking down upon him, while he looked back from half-closed eyes, upon which they had already put death pennies, to keep down the lids.
    • 1926, Robert Thurston Hopkins, The Literary Landmarks of Devon & Cornwall‎[9], page 179:
      He told me how in the oldest graves "death pennies," once used to close the eyes of the corpse, are found.
    • 2010, Elizabeth Chadwick, The Winter Mantle‎[10], →ISBN:
      His hands fumbled, and his eyes felt as though someone had weighed them down with death pennies.

References

Further reading

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