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A farthing was originally called a fourthing - The old English Penny was originally designed to be cut into four pieces in order to make change! Over the years, the word degraded into the modern spelling.

Answer

Actually, a farthing is a semantic shift of fourthing, from Old English feorðung, or fourth (quarter) of a penny. They were not cut into four, but minted as a coin with four to a penny (so a halfpenny, pronounced hay-penny, was worth two farthings).The confusion above may come about from pennies being cut into two or four, thus making halfpennies and farthings. They were used in Britain until 1960, at which time inflation had made them near valueless and a nuisance.

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