2682: The Symbol for Penny was d Apr 24, 2024

For over 50 years in Britain, the symbol for a penny is simply ‘p’, written at the end of a price like 99p, but before decimalisation in 1971, Brits would write out pence as ‘d’, also at the end. This pre-decimal system, which saw 20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence to the shilling, is often referred to as £sd or Lsd as an abbreviation of these units of sterling. For instance, something costing 7 shillings, and 9 pence might be written 7/9d. This raises the question of why ‘d’? Even the ‘s’ for shillings, not as commonly seen as the other two letters, only coincidentally had the same initial letter. 

Rather, these abbreviations come from Latin, where ‘pounds’ is ‘librae’ (hence the L-based £ symbol), ‘shillings’ is ‘solidi’, and ‘pence’ is ‘denarii’ (all written in their plural form). These words are no longer used, but the word ‘denarius’ led to many other words for modern currencies, ranging from Serbia to Bahrain, or just money as in the Spanish ‘dinero’.