coiner

From Middle English coynour, from Middle French coigneur; equivalent to coin +‎ -er.

coiner (plural coiners)

1. A person who makes coins (often counterfeit coins).
   • 1580, John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wyt, London: Gabriel Cawood, p. 85,

     But canst thou excuse thy selfe of vice in that thou art not couetous? certeinly no more then the murtherer would therefore be guiltlesse bicause he is no coyner.

   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act II, Scene 5,

     […] that most venerable man which I

     Did call my father, was I know not where

     When I was stamp’d; some coiner with his tools

     Made me a counterfeit […]

   • 1726, Joseph Addison, Dialogues upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals, Dialogue 3, p. 154,

     The figures and letters were so mingled together, that one would think the Coiner was hard put to it on what part of the money to bestow the several words of his inscription.

   • 1776, Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, London: W. Strahan & T. Cadell, Book 4, Chapter 6, pp. 139-40,

     The dangers to which a false coiner is every where exposed, if he lives in the country of which he counterfeits the coin, and to which his agents or correspondents are exposed if he lives in a foreign country, are by far too great to be incurred for the sake of a profit of six or seven per cent.

   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second Volume 5, Chapter 21, p. 87,

     The coiners too multiplied and prospered; for the worse the current money became the more easily it was imitated.

2. A person who invents words or phrases.
   • 1651, John Ellistone (translator), Signatura Rerum by Jakob Böhme (1621), London: Gyles Calvert, Postscript, “The Translators Exposition of the word, Sude,” p. 207,

     These are some unusual Words, which I have used in the rendering this Book into English; not that I would make it a Strange-Lation, or be a Coyner of new words to amuse the mind only, but to express as well, and as fitly as I could, the Authors Intent and scope […]

   • 1711, John Dennis, Reflections Critical and Satyrical, upon a Late Rhapsody call’d, An Essay upon Criticism, London: Bernard Lintott, p. 16,

     This is likewise a Libel upon the memory of Mr. Dryden whom he pretends to admire; for never any one was a greater Coiner than he, and it is directly contrary to the Improvement of Languages […]

   • 1919, H. L. Mencken, The American Language, New York: Knopf, Chapter 3, §3, p. 80,

     It was not, however, among the verbs and adjectives that the American word-coiners of the first half of the century achieved their gaudiest innovations, but among the substantives.

   • 1952, Harold Innis, The Strategy of Culture, University of Toronto Press, Footnote 86,

     Any fresh idea is immediately pounced on and mauled to death. Irvin Cobb remarked concerning the dull conversation of Hollywood that the phrase coiners preserved silence until they had sold the wheeze themselves.

3. (obsolete) A person who invents or fabricates (stories, lies, etc.).
   • 1566, John Fowler (translator), An Oration against the Unlawfull Insturrections of the Protestantes of our Time by Petrus Frarinus, Antwerp,

     […] the inuenter & coyner of al these michiefes, & seruante & bondslaue of al bawdie luste, fylthie concupiscence, and all detestable sinne and vice.

   • 1615, Richard Rogers, A Commentary upon the Whole Booke of Judges, Sermon 66, Chapter 11, Part 2, p. 559,

     The truth is, men in generall hate lying, both the coyner of it, and the teller of it […]

   • 1654, Thomas Gataker, A Discours Apologetical, London: Thomas Newberry, p. 2,

     […] a coyner and broacher of fictions and fables, to gain credit thereby to his cheating Trade, and to gull poor people with, by telling them such fond tales, and frivolous stories, as himself well knows, and his own Conscience (if he have any at least,) told him, that he had no proof at all for […]

   • 1698, Robert Ferguson, A View of an Ecclesiastick in his Socks & Buskins, London: John Marshall, p. 74,

     […] a Romancer, a Coyner of Fables, a Misrepresenter and Slanderer […]

• (person who makes coins): minter
• (person who makes counterfeit coins): counterfeiter
• (person who invents words): neologist

• Cerino, norice, orcein, orcine, recoin

coiner

1. Alternative form of coynour