Numism. Also & stica, sticca, 9 stika, styka. [Assumed sing. from ONorthumb. stycas, dial. pl. of OE. stycce str. neut. (WS. pl. styccu) piece (of money): see STITCH sb.2
The sense ‘piece of money’ occurs only in the following passage, where it is applied to the ‘widow’s mite.’ The OE. word was certainly never the distinctive name of a coin.
c. 950. Lindisf. Gosp., Mark xii. 42. An widua ðorfend sende tuoʓe stycas ꝥ is feorðung penniʓes.]
The name given in modern times to a small copper coin current in Northumbria in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. The extant specimens weigh about 17 grains.
1705. Fountaine, in Hickes, Thesaurus, II. Diss. 164. Quod Styc vel Styca ab antiquis Anglis vocabatur.
1745. Leake, Engl. Money (ed. 2), 14. They [Saxons] had Copper Stycas also, smaller than the Penny, having the King’s Name on one Side [etc.].
1753. Scots Mag., April, 200/2. Two small silver Saxon coins of a sort called Sticaes.
1756. Gentl. Mag., XXVI. 284. Mr. Thoresby says in relation to the Sticas, namely, that the three in his collection were all that were known at Oxford.
1778. Engl. Gazetteer (ed. 2), s.v. Rippon, A considerable number of Saxon coins were found here anno 1695, particularly the brass ones, called sticcas, eight whereof made a penny.
1844. Lingard, Anglo-Saxon Ch. (1858), II. App. O. 388. The styca was the one-fourth of a penny.
1845. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, II. No. xiii. 123. Mr. Donaldson Selby exhibited two Saxon Styca.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann., 521. By far the greater number are stykas of Eadgar.
1915. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., 201. The small disc referred to above … is not a styca—for that it is too thick; possibly it has been a Roman minim.
