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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most plausible theory is that it represents Old English *steorling, meaning "coin with a star" (a pair of stars having appeared on certain Norman pennies). The numismatist Philip Grierson rejects this, however, noting that the starred penny was only minted between 1077 and 1080 and formed a tiny fraction of the total coinage issued by the Normans. Grierson suggests

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