Coin a phrase

The use of the word coin as in the coining of words and phrases dates from the 16th century. It means to create a new word or phrase just as to coin money means to create new metal money. The word coin itself is from the 12th century Old French coing for wedge, stamp or angle, which in turns derives from the Latin cuneus meaning the same thing. The modern French coin retains this meaning for corner or angle. The original dies for stamping metal were wedge-shaped and by the 13th century, coin had also become the name for the metal things produced by these wedge-shaped dies. Shakespeare of course coined more words and phrases in the English language than anyone else, and he alludes to coining words in Coriolanus Act III, Scene I (c.1608). “So shall my lungs coin words, till their decay.” Did Shakespeare coin the phrase ‘to coin a phrase’? Probably not, because the exact phrase to coin a phrase appears much later, during the 19th century. Today, the expression is often used in an ironic or sarcastic sense, especially when preceded by a well-worn phrase or cliché, where one is in fact doing the very opposite of coining a phrase e.g. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles - to coin a phrase.”