Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a husband.

a.1904

T.W. Connor [perf. Herbert Campbell] ‘At My Time of Life’ 🎵 There was none o' yer 'Highty Flighty' girls / Yer 'Hi-tiddley Hi-ty' girls / When my old ‘Fourpenny bit’ took me for a wife.

a steak and kidney pie.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(Aus.) cheap red wine.

1946		Argus (Melbourne) Weekend Mag. 7 Dec. 105/1: Call me ‘the man who drinks 4d dark’.
1948		Centralian Advocate (Alice Springs, NT) 13 Aug. 10/2: Asked what anaesthetic he used, Dave said, ‘Fourpenny dark’.
1953		G. Casey in Bulletin 16 Sept. in Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 123: It’s too cold for streetcorners and just right for [...] a gallon of fourpenny dark with a mate.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 58: You’ll feed her your fourpenny dark, your worst stinking firewater.
1960		Aus. Women’s Wkly 17 Feb. 12/2: ‘Wot’ll yer have, mate?’ asked Nino. ‘A fourpenny “dark” or a beer?’.
1970		N. Beagley Up and Down Under 80: Muscat was dubbed ‘Round the world for fourpence,’ or a ‘fourpenny dart’ [sic].
1972		A. Chipper Aussie Swearers Guide 67: Wine fanciers of all descriptions leave themselves open to being called plonk fiends or plonkos. (refer scornfully to their [...] nelly or fourpenny dark).
1980		Hepworth & Hindle Boozing out in Melbourne Pubs 16: The legendary drink of the twenties and thirties was the Fourpenny Dark.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 26: Fourpenny dark: Cheap red fortified wine, usually quite nasty.
2003		N. Faith Australia’s Liquid Gold 73: An appalling-sounding red port called Fourpenny Dark was especially popular.

a sharp blow; usu. as get a... or give a...

1898		E. Pugh Tony Drum 187: I shall have to fetch you a fourpenny one in a minute!
1900		Marvel 15 May 15: One of them got too close, and received a tuppeny one with the heel of Luke’s boot.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 56: Quite a number of lags awaited his appearance [...] to ‘dot him a fourpenny one’.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 78: ‘Do you like ice-creams?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you like fourpenny ones?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I’ll give you one’ (punching him).
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 33: A terrible fourpenny he’d have given her.
1969		S.T. Kendall Up the Frog 12: This ’ere bloke grabs ’im by the ’oller boys ’oller and gives ’im a real fourpenny one in the Newington Butts.
1997		(con. 1950s) D. Farson Never a Normal Man 119: ‘On your way, Lottie,’ she replied [...] ‘or I’ll give you a fourpenny one.’.

a fourpenny bit or groat, the predecessor of the threepenny bit.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.