Sterling Silver - Etymology

Etymology

One of the earliest attestations of the term is in Old French form esterlin, in a charter of the abbey of Les Préaux, dating to either 1085 or 1104. The English chronicler Orderic Vitalis (1075 – c. 1142) uses the Latin forms libræ sterilensium and libræ sterilensis monetæ. The word in origin refers to the newly introduced Norman silver penny.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most plausible etymology is derivation from a late Old English steorling (with (or like) a "little star"), as some early Norman pennies were imprinted with a small star. There are a number of obsolete hypotheses. One suggests a connection with starling, because four birds (in fact martlets) were depicted on a penny of Edward I, and another, a supposed connection with easterling, a term for natives of the Baltic, or the Hanse, towns of eastern Germany. This etymology is itself medieval, suggested by Walter de Pinchebek (ca. 1300) with the explanation that the coin was originally made by moneyers from that region.

On the other hand, Philip Grierson, in his essay on Sterling, points out that the stars appeared on Norman pennies only for the single 3-year issue from 1077-1080 (the Normans changed coin designs every 3 years), and that the star-theory thus fails on linguistic grounds: extensive research has been done on how coins acquire names, including nicknames. Grierson's proposed alternative involves an analogy with the Byzantine solidus, originally known as the solidus aureaus meaning "solid gold" or "reliable gold". Even though English silver pennies had become famous for their consistent weight and purity in the days of Offa, King of Mercia, by the time of the Conquest English coinage had seriously degenerated. One of the first acts of the Normans was to restore the coinage to what it had been in the days of Offa, and to maintain it consistently. Grierson thus proposes that "sterling" derives from "ster" meaning "strong" or "stout".