Sterling

Sterling, originally a substantive, 'a coin of true weight,' as applied at first to the English penny, then to all current coin. Skeat accepts the old and often doubted etymology that the name is derived from the Hanse merchants or Easterlings (i.e. 'men from the east'), who had many privileges in England in the 13th century, including probably that of coining money (see Vol. V. p. 541). The adjective is now used of all the money of the United Kingdom, and has long been a synonym for pure and genuine.