English
guinea
see also: Guinea
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈɡɪni/
Noun

guinea (plural guineas)

  1. (US, slang, pejorative, ethnic slur) A person of Italian descent.
  2. (British, historical) A gold coin originally worth twenty shillings; later (from 1717 until the adoption of decimal currency) standardised at a value of twenty-one shillings.
    • 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
      English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider's web, round pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round your neck—nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection...
  3. Synonym of guinea fowl#English|guinea fowl
    • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, “Brooding and Homing,”
      The guineas peeped complainingly, the goslings waddled into all the puddles and came back to chill my skin.
Synonyms Translations
Guinea
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈɡɪniː/
Proper noun
  1. (historical geography) The coast of West Africa between Morocco and the Congo, particularly the north shore of the Gulf of Guinea.
  2. A country in West Africa, official=Republic of Guinea.
  3. (derogatory US slang, ethnic slur) Someone of Italian descent in the United States.
Translations

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Offline English dictionary