A coin worth half of a groat, a small silver piece used in medieval England.
From 'demi-' (half) + 'groat,' which comes from Middle Dutch 'groot' meaning great or large, referring to a large medieval coin. A groat was already a modest coin, so a demigroat was quite small.
Medieval coins had names that are hilarious by modern standards—imagine asking someone for change and saying 'got any demigroats?' These half-value coins show how inflation and commerce required increasingly smaller denominations.
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