Groschen (; from "thick", via Old Czech ) a (sometimes colloquial) name for various coins, especially a silver coin used in various states of the Holy Roman Empire and other parts of Europe. The word is borrowed from the late Latin description of a tornose, a grossus denarius Turnosus, in English the "thick denarius of Tours". Groschen was frequently abbreviated in old documents to gl, whereby the second letter was not an l (12th letter of the alphabet), but an abbreviation symbol; later it was written as Gr or g. Names and etymology The name was introduced in 13th-century France as , lit. "thick penny", whence Old French , Italian , Middle High German , Low German and Dutch and English groat. In the 14th century, it appeared as Old Czech , whence Modern German . Names in other modern European languages include: Church Slavonic-derived languages: Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian and Serbo-Croatian (), Ukrainian: () () The , , , () and are the Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish, names respectively, for currency denominations in and around the territories formerly part of the Ottoman Empire derived from the same Italian origin. History Middle Ages Names like groschen, grossus/grossi, grosso, grossone, grosz, gros, groš, groat, Groten, garas etc. were used in the Middle Ages for all thick silver coins, as opposed to thin silver coins such as or pennies. Historically it was equal to between several and a dozen . In the German-speaking world, the groschen was usually worth 12 pfennigs; many regional (small) groschen e.g. Neugroschen, Groten (plural: Grote) in northern Germany, English: groat, Mariengroschen, Grösch(e)l were worth between 2½ and 10 pfennigs. The later Kreuzer, a coin worth 4 pfennigs arose from the linguistic abbreviation of the small Kreuzgroschen. The groschen was first introduced into the Holy Roman Empire in 1271 by Duke Meinhard II of Tyrol in Merano. It was originally a solid coin of pure silver, larger than the denarius which was no longer valid. In essence, it took the place of a variety of the older pfennigs, whose silver purity had inflated their value over the centuries. According to one source, the city of Trier is said to have struck groschen-like, thick pfennigs as early as 1104, which were then followed in 1300 by the Bohemian groschen from Kuttenberg. The new coin soon inspired other 'mint lords' (Münzherren) and was given, not least for reasons of