shilling: [OE] Shilling has relatives in the other Germanic languages – German schilling, Dutch schelling, and Swedish and Danish skilling – which point back to a prehistoric Germanic *skillinggaz. Where this came from, however, is a mystery. Among suggestions are that it was formed from the base *skel- ‘divide, separate’ (source of English scale, shell, etc), and hence denotes etymologically a ‘division’ of a standard unit of weight or currency; or from the base *skell- ‘resound, ring’ (source of Dutch schel ‘shrill’ and German schelle ‘bell’).
shilling (n.)
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.
