guinea

From Guinea, the country in West Africa, the coins originally being made of gold from the region and used for African trade, and the guinea fowl being found there.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɪni/

guinea (plural guineas)

1. (US, slang, derogatory, ethnic slur) A person of Italian descent.
2. (Britain, 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
   • 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.

• (person of Italian descent): dago, Eyetie, goombah, greaseball, guido, wog, wop

guinea

1. guinea (British gold coin)

• IPA^(key): /ɡiˈnea/

Borrowed from English guinea.

guinea f (plural guineas)

1. guinea (British gold coin)

See guineo.

guinea f (plural guineas)

1. female equivalent of guineo

guinea

1. Feminine singular of adjective guineo.