Old English scilling, a coin consisting of a varying number of pence (on the continent, a common scale was 12 pennies to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound), from Proto-Germanic *skillingoz- (cognates: Old Saxon, Danish, Swedish, Old Frisian, Old High German skilling, Old Norse skillingr, Dutch schelling, German Schilling, Gothic skilliggs).Some etymologists trace this to the root *skell- "to resound, to ring," and others to the root *(s)kel- (1) "to cut" (perhaps via sense of "shield" from resemblance or as a device on coins; see shield, n.). The ending may represent the diminutive suffix -ling, or Germanic -ing "fractional part" (compare farthing). Old Church Slavonic skulezi, Polish szeląg, Spanish escalin, French schelling, Italian scellino are loan-words from Germanic.