Britain’s Royal Mint is the world’s leading exporter of circulating currency, with about 15% of the available market. In the three months leading up to the Greek election in January, sales of the mint’s sovereign gold coins went up. Worth about £200 ($310) each, these coins have become a popular investment for Greeks who worry that their currency might plunge in value or disappear altogether http://econ.st/1DoCrnJ
An ancient institution at home in the modern world
North Korea’s leadership
Kim Jong Un stamps his own style on his fantasy kingdom
Muslim arbitration in Germany
Mediating disputes is an age-old tradition in the Arab world, which is also
practiced in Germany. But experts warn of the danger of a parallel, Muslim
judiciary.
UBS's move to boost its capital base underlines its continuing struggles to return to profitability even as its competitors are minting money.
Bribing for a living in Romania
The European Commission this week issued a report in which it urged Romania
and Bulgaria to
stamp out corruption and reform the judiciary.
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譬如說它提到的quoin
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房子的一外角;隅石
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楔形石;楔子
本文
附圖解釋為
Figure 14: A quoin key tightening a quoin.
壓緊或放鬆緊版的楔子之鑰
Coin a phrase
Meaning
Create a new phrase.
Origin
'To coin a phrase' is now rarely used with its original 'invent a new phrase' meaning but is almost always used ironically to introduce a banal or clichéd sentiment. This usage began in the mid 20th century. For example, in Francis Brett Young's novel Mr. Lucton's Freedom, 1940:
"It takes all sorts to make a world, to coin a phrase."
Coining, in the sense of creating, derives from the coining of money by stamping metal with a die. Coins - also variously spelled coynes, coigns, coignes or quoins - were the blank, usually circular, disks from which money was minted. This usage derived from an earlier 14th century meaning of coin, which meant wedge. The wedge-shaped dies which were used to stamp the blanks were called coins and the metal blanks and the subsequent 'coined' money took their name from them.
Coining later began to be associated with inventiveness in language. In the 16th century the 'coining' of words and phrases was often referred to. By that time the monetary coinage was often debased or counterfeit and the coining of words was often associated with spurious linguistic inventions. For example, in George Puttenham's The arte of English poesie, 1589:
"Young schollers not halfe well studied... will seeme to coigne fine wordes out of the Latin."
Shakespeare, the greatest coiner of them all, also referred to the coining of language in
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Coriolanus, 1607:
"So shall my Lungs Coine words till their decay."
Quoin has been retained as the name of the wedge-shaped keystones or corner blocks of buildings. Printers also use the term as the name for the expandable wedges that are used to hold lines of type in place in a press. This has provoked some to suggest that 'coin a phrase' derives from the process of quoining (wedging) phrases in a printing press. That is not so. 'Quoin a phrase' is recorded nowhere and 'coining' meant 'creating' from before the invention of printing in 1440. Co-incidentally, printing does provide us with a genuine derivation that links printing with linguistic banality - cliché. This derives from the French cliquer, from the clicking sound of the stamp used to make metal typefaces.
'Coin a phrase' itself arises much later than the invention of printing - the 19th century in fact. The earliest use of the term that I have found is in the Wisconsin newspaper The Southport American, July 1848:
"Had we to find... a name which should at once convey the enthusiasm of our feelings towards her, we would coin a phrase combining the extreme of admiration and horror and term her the Angel of Assassination."
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stamp out
Extinguish or destroy, as in The government stamped out the rebellion in a brutal way, or The police were determined to stamp out drug dealers. This metaphoric expression alludes to extinguishing a fire by trampling on it. [Mid-1800s]
stamp[stamp]
[名]
2 印紙, （納付）証紙.
5 押し［打ち］型, ダイス(die)；版木；型押し機, 刻印機.
6 押し型などでつけた模様［記号］.
7 ((通例a ［the］ 〜))((形式))しるし, こん跡, 特徴, 特質
8 ((通例a ［the］ 〜))((形式))（人・物の）性格；種類；タイプ
9 領収の証明, 料金支払いの指示；((英話))国民保険料.
10 （足を）踏みつける［鳴らす］こと.
━━[動](他)
1 〈地面・床などを〉踏みつける, 踏みしめる；〈足を〉踏みおろす
2 …を踏みにじる, 踏み消す［つぶす］((out, on))；…を押しつぶす, 粉砕する；［III[名][副]/V[名][形]］…を踏んで（…に）する
stamp ... to bits
…を粉々に打ちくだく.
3 〈反乱などを〉鎮圧する；〈感情などを〉抑える；〈犯罪・病気などを〉撲滅する((out)).
4 ［stamp A with B/stamp B on ［onto］ A］
(1) 〈A（物）にB（印など）を〉（証明・認可・所有などを示すために）押す
(2) 〈A（物）にB（模様・記号など）を〉刻印する；((比喩))〈A（心など）にB（印象など）を〉刻む（▼連語関係によってはin, intoも用いる）
5 〈手紙・封筒に〉切手をはる；〈書類に〉印紙をはる
a stamped addressed envelope
((英))切手をはり宛名を書いた封書（略：s.a.e.）
6 ［V[名]as[名]［[形]］］〈人が〉（…であることを）示す, 特徴づける
7 …を（型に合わせて）打ち抜く, 押し切る((out))
━━(自)
1 （力を込めて）踏みつける((on))；足を踏み鳴らす, じだんだ踏む
2 ドタドタと歩く((along；into ...)).
3 ((略式))（提案などを）つぶす, 却下する((on ...)).
Definition of coin in English:
noun
verb
[WITH OBJECT]Back to top
1.1Make (metal) into coins.
1.2British informal Earn a lot of (money) quickly and easily:the company was coining it in at the rate of £90 a second
Origin
Middle English: from
Old French coin 'wedge, corner, die',
coigner 'to mint', from
Latin cuneus 'wedge'. The original sense was 'cornerstone', later 'angle or wedge'
(senses now spelled quoin); in
late Middle English the term denoted a die for stamping money, or a piece of money produced by such a die.
