sterling

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   of excellent quality; British currency or sterling silver

   She did sterling work organizing the entire conference.

Simplified etymology

Sterling is probably an Old English formation based on steorra, meaning star, with the original sense little star, referring to stars on some early English silver coins. The standardized coins came to be used as weights, and from the mid-16th century sterling denoted genuine English money of a reliable standard. The adjective was applied first to the coin, then to silver of the same testable purity, and by the mid-16th century to a person considered similarly reliable.

From Middle English 'sterling', a silver penny, probably from Old English 'steorra' (star, from a stamp on early Norman coins) plus the diminutive suffix '-ling'; the adjectival sense 'of high quality' arose from the reputation of sterling silver.

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