Bodle
A bodle or boddle or bodwell, also known as a half groat or Turner was a Scottish copper coin, of less value than a bawbee, worth about one-sixth of an English penny, first issued under Charles II. They were minted until the coronation of Anne. Its name may derive from Bothwell (a mint-master).
It is mentioned in one of the songs of Joanna Baillie:
- Black Madge, she is prudent, has sense in her noddle
- Is douce and respectit; I carena a bodle.
The use of the word survives in the anglicised phrase "not to care a bodle", which Brewer glosses as "not to care a farthing". Something similar appears in Burns' Tam O' Shanter (line 110), it is also mentioned:
- Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle (He cared not devils a bodle)
See also
- Plack
- Pound Scots
- Scottish coinage
References
- MacKay, Charles – A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch (1888)
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
External links
- Elks, Ken. Coinage of Great Britain
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Bodle". Image Credit.
