Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A Scotch billon coin current in the fifteenth century (from 1468), and also in the sixteenth century. It was worth 4 pence Scotch (about two thirds of the United States cent), and under James VI. 8 pence Scotch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small copper coin formerly current in Scotland, worth less than a cent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Scotland and northern UK, Historical Any of various small coins used in Scotland and the Netherlands during the 15th and 16th centuries, having a value in Scotland of four pennies Scots.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English placke, from Dutch plak ("small coin"), from Middle Dutch placke ("name of a coin"). Cognate with Old High German pleh, bleh ("thin leaf of metal, plate"). Compare plaque.

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Examples

  • The inflammation causes cholesterol plack to stick to the spot and then you have a heart attack.

    Why yes, I do wear an underwire. Angry Professor 2008

  • “Do so, my bonny chield; thou hast sharp ears and eyes, and good will — but take heed — I would not lose thee for two and a plack [an homely Scottish expression for something you value].”

    Quentin Durward 2008

  • He, in future, used to express himself among friends, concerning the minister and his wife, as “very worthy decent folk, just a little over strict in their notions; put it was pest for thae plack cattle to err on the safe side.”

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 2007

  • In short, as Duncan boasted, the entertainment did not cost MacCallummore a plack out of his sporran, and was nevertheless not only liberal, but overflowing.

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 2007

  • Since all numbers are infinite we get into plack scales that is a 1 with 33 zeroes before it.

    Think Progress » Rice Was Against Iraq Group Before She Was For It 2006

  • So at least we, having lent the American neither plack nor penny, do in perfect charity presume; but in the mean time he has our capital -- say now some thirty millions -- he has used it most thoroughly and judiciously for himself, and even supposing that we shall not ultimately suffer, what gain can we qualify thereby?

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. Various

  • You have seen the sort of man I mean: to-day generous to his last plack, to-morrow the widow's oppressor; Sunday a soul humble at the throne of grace, and writhing with remorse for some child's sin, Monday riding vain-gloriously in the glaur on the road to hell, bragging of filthy amours, and inwardly gloating upon a crime anticipated.

    John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn Neil Munro

  • Curssing for a plack, to laste for a year, to curse all that looke ower our dick [dyke]? and that keapis our corne better nor the sleaping boy, that will have three schillingis of fye, a sark, and payre of schone in the year.

    The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) John Knox

  • As a gen'al thing them people fra 'the States hae plenty o' plack in their pockets.

    Adèle Dubois A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick Mrs. William T. Savage

  • In my last plack thy part's be in't -- [a small coin]

    Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907

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