The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word "shilling" comes from "scilling", an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was said to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive from the base "skell-", "to ring/resound" and the diminutive suffix "-ling". The slang term for a shilling as a currency unit was a "bob".