ponce, v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

ponce v.

1. to work as a pimp or ponce.

1932		G.S. Moncrieff Café Bar IV 35: Lou left her periodically, usually to live with some other tart, poncing .
1943		‘Henry Green’ Caught (2001) 64: He told Shiner he did not ponce for them.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 200: I was beginning to cherish high hopes of reforming Cecil altogether, getting him to turn in his poncing racket.
1960		C. MacInnes Mr Love and Justice (1964) 42: Quite clearly, poncing would be dangerous.
1970		Times 24 Nov. 4: You have had to listen to tales of pimping and poncing, prostitution, lying, and planting of evidence.
1989		(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 60: I was poncing, and that brought more money in.

2. to sponge (although with no implication of ‘immoral earnings’).

1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 176: The whole of this pox-rotten world is poncing on its neighbours! whilst you have – they love you; when you have not – they will kill you to gain the very air you breathe.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 28: I gives ’em somefink for it. I don’t ponce it orf ’em.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 116: He was a right slag, what with never washing and ponsing dogend from morning to night.
1966		B. Reckord Skyvers I ii: Have you seen about any sort of job for when you leave, or are you gonna be poncin’?
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 156: I couldn’t ponce on the working class for ever, live off land and property.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 172: He couldn’t see her enjoying a long second wind, a year, six months, poncing vodkas off the brothers.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 12 Sept. 3: He swaggers down the red carpet after poncing a cigarette from the PR girl.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 13: Every waif and stray of the parish plotted up, poncing and earwigging.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 81: [He] grins when ah produce the readies, tipplin that ah’m no here tae try n ponce.

3. to act in an affected, effeminate manner.

1966		(con. 1948–52) L. Thomas Virgin Soldiers 18: They were talking about it like a couple of poncing chorus girls.
1968		J. Barlow Burden of Proof 132: I don’t ponce, but these people have the finger on me. A bit of post-puberty homosexuality and you’re lumbered with these pathetic jokers.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 280: Like them two poncin’ down the quayside.
1996		K. Lette Mad Cows (1997) 197: Fin slewed open the car door in Maddy’s path and ponced to his feet.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 63: You said six o’clock [...] so don’t go crook on us when you ponce in 20 minutes late.

In derivatives

poncing (adj.)

a general term of abuse.

1968		P. Larkin letter 19 Aug. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 403: Did you see that poncing student of ours shooting off his mouth to the Press Association?
1970		T. Parker Frying-Pan 138: Those poncing doctors, they tell you you’re not half as bad as they think you are.
1980		A. Payne ‘All Mod Cons’ in Minder [TV script] 32: That’s how the poncing swine get away with it!

In phrases

ponce about (v.) (also ponce along, ...around, ...in)

1. to act in a pretentious, affected manner.

1952		C. Harris Death of a Barrow Boy 145: Poncing about all the times in a flash suit and binoculars.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 28: It was no good poncing in there with our Savile Row knickers.
1969		N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 176: Everyone would pose, pout, ponce about, and they’d get high on themselves.
1973		T. Lewis Billy Rags [ebook] Gordon Harris poncing along behind holding the hook, looking like a spare prick at a wedding.
1978		B. Humphries Nice Night’s Entertainment (1981) 174: I gets a squizz through the curtain at first class and there's Rupert bloody Murdoch and Kerry Packer poncing around with glasses of champagne in their hands.
1980		T. McClenaghan Submariners I i: You can’t ponce about like that.
1985		A. Payne ‘Minder on the Orient Express’ Minder [TV script] 17: Call that work? Poncing around in a penguin suit.
1992		R.G. Barrett Davo’s Little Something 16: Thos limp wristed, mincing little fags you often see poncing about.
1993		C. Fowler Darkest Day (1998) 335: Oscar Wilde started poncing around with his sacred lily.
1999		Guardian G2 9 Sept. 17: They didn’t want this goon poncing about in a silly wig.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 41: Mick Chatters was poncing about in a pair of high camp sunglasses.
2006		D. Seabrook Jack of Jumps (2007) 20: Duncombe Road? With Ward and Reefer poncing around? Not to mention Pauline.
2023		D. Whish-Wilson I Am Already Dead 186: [Y]oung guy poncing about town.

2. to wander aimlessly, to live as a good-for-nothing.

1970		T. Parker Frying-Pan 45: If I find myself poncing about in the rain trying to earn five quid.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 11: Only a week before I’d been poncing round the Mediterranean on a sunshine cruise.
1985		T. Murphy Conversations on a Homecoming (1986) 60: This eejit, this bollocks, with his [...] greedy unprincipled poncing.
2000		Indep. Rev. 12 June 1: Stelios could have spent all his life poncing about on the Riviera.

3. to waste time.

1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 63: Don’t ponce about with parades at this time of night.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 172: All this poncing about [...] That clot’s just wasting time.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 46: Somebody’s probably murdering some poor cunt [...] and we’re poncing aroond here wi some silly wee lassies.

4. to tease, to be impudent.

1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 17: I fink yuh poncin’ me about an’ geezers wot ponce me about get ’urt bad.
2000		J. Hawes Dead Long Enough 6: Poncing about with someone else’s skull, under the hot white camera lights.

ponce it up (v.)

to act in an affected manner.

1983

A. Payne ‘Senior Citizen Caine’ Minder [TV script] 34: You think I’m going to drive that around with you poncing it up in the back seat?

ponce off (v.) (also ponce on)

1. to live off immoral earnings.

1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 23: I didn’t say no one was poncing on her.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 10: He’d got nicked for poncing off his old woman who was a brass on the game down the Baze.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 109: Jock Stone walked in with Dundee Eileen. He’s poncing off her.

2. to scrounge (money) from someone.

1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 204: He’s poncing on the old lady.
1958		F. Norman in Sun. Graphic 20 July in Norman’s London (1969) 17: I cannot go two yards up Old Compton Street without someone coming up to me and poncing a tosheroon or a dollar off me.
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 82: ‘Ponce’ [...] means an unpleasant parasite, and is used as a verb to the same effect – ‘he was poncing on the old man’.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 90: Kelly did a day’s work every six months; the rest of the time he ponced off Lil.
1999		Indep. Mag. 29 May 12: A broke student who played the guitar and ponced all my grant money off me.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 241: Spend some of that focking dole money that you already ponce off the rest of us.

ponce up (v.)

(orig. milit.) to decorate (an object), to dress up (a person), usu. with some ostentation and flashiness.

1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 93: Wanted to be all ponced up when you was lifted, so’s the boys wouldn’t see you coming ragged-arsed into the nick.
1966		B. Hesling Stir Up This Stew 215: I can never get used to these Adelaide villas, they're pure gingerbread, but varnished and all ponced up with jiggly ironwork and fenced in with the same stuff as witches' brooms.
1976		J. Gardner Cornerman 52: Their Rolls is in the Dean Street car park and Chung Yin’s sitting in it ponced up like the sweet-and-sour faggot he is.
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 81: There is also a reminder of the former meaning in the term ‘ponced-up’ for over-dressed.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 206: Choko McGruder who was all ponced up in his new fedora.
1999		Guardian G2 24 June 9: All smothered in National Trust paint .... ponced up [...] festooned to buggery.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 15: The quaking cardinal, all ponced up in his purple finery and reeking of perfumed water and hair oil.