Green’s Dictionary of Slang

absolutely penniless.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Apr. 6/4: I started in a ’bus, but as a man got in with an American accent and a black Gladstone bag, I cautiously alighted, and, being too ‘stoney’ to cab it, I […] walked.
1884		Sporting Times 26 Jan. 2/3: The rest look wistful, but stony. Suddenly it occurs to one of them to remember that I am in his debt for a trifling loan.
1892		‘’Arry in ’Arrygate’ in Punch 24 Sept. 133/3: That Fifty is nearly played out, and my slap at the Ebor went wrong / [...] I’m stoney.
1894		E.W. Rogers [perf. Vesta Tilley] My Friend the Major 🎵 Know the Major's always stony, / Always up to sundry pranks. / Meets you and demands a pony, / Borrows it and gives no thanks.
1898		W. Pett Ridge Mord Em’ly 225: She’s going to be my li’l’ bread-winner; when I’m stony, I come t’ her for ’alf-dollar.
1898		Regiment 25 June 203: [cartoon caption] Jules: ‘Can you stand the absinthe, Alphonse?’ Alphonse: ‘No, I’m stoney’.
1899		H. Lawson ‘The Songs They Used to Sing’ in Roderick (1972) 385: I hit the right nail on the head when I guessed, in the first place, that the old nobleman was ‘stony’.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 191: I ain’t so [...] stony that I’ve lost hope of dealing out flimsies like handbills again.
1906		H. Lawson ‘To Jack’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 211: Though ‘stoney’ to-night and alone, Jack, / I am watching the Old Year out.
1910		Sporting Times 1 Jan. 4/1: When they are stony they borrow money off each other.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 15: Seriously, Dedalus. I’m stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring us back some money.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 399: I know how it feels to be out of work, in a strange town, stony.
1959		D. Niland Gold in the Streets (1966) 197: Why didn’t you come to me if you’re stony and out?
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 97: You’re being real generous to me [...] giving me a job when I was stoney.
1964		J.A. Lee Shiner Slattery 43: He didn’t have a penny. As stony as I am at this moment.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1980		(con. 1930s) Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 18: A hard-up person is [...] ‘stony’.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.