Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. threepence.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Thrumms, c. Threepence. Tip me thrumms, c. Lend me Three-pence.
1708		J. Hall Memoirs (1714) 14: Thrums, Three-pence.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1741		Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict. 113: Three Pence Thrum Wins.
1747		Life and Character of Moll King 11: Let me see, [...] a Double Gage of Rum Slobber, is Thrums; and a Quartern of Max, is three Megs.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 558: Did you twig how he queered the coves out of seven bob for what was not worth thrums.* [* Thrums — A flash term for threepence].
1837		‘Sal Stuff’ in Ri-tum Ti-tum Songster 11: You’re welcome to cut at me, if you can raise a tanner [...] If you can muster thrums, you’re velcome to my vall fruit.
1840		‘Monmouth Street’ in Lover’s Harmony No. 19 148: For thrums you’ll get a new bandana, / And a bran new shaker for a tanner.
1850		Bell’s Life in Sydney 23 Feb. 3/1: He first wanted 25s. for his. cab, then one pound and thrums.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 108: THRUMS, threepence. [Ibid.] THRUMMER, a threepenny bit.
1862		J.A. Hardwick ‘The Mountebank’ in Prince of Wales’ Own Song Book 47: And only three pennies – threepence – ‘thrums.’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 60/2: The ‘padding-ken’ in Pye street, Westminster, where he ‘dossed’ at the rate of ‘thrums’ (three pence) per night. [Ibid.] 108/2: His first putting-up place was at a low padding ken is St. Giles’s, where he paid a ‘thrum’ a night for share of a ‘doss.’.
1870		D. Kirwan Palace & Hovel 69: Here’s Spuds at Thrums a pound, they’re prime ’uns as I’ve found.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 June 3/2: He would thou re-enter his ‘drum’ and lavishly treat himself to another ‘ thrumsworth’.
1881		Nottingham Eve. Post 28 Jan. 4/5: I managed to cop a swell bloke on the fly for a thrummer.
1883		Queensland Figaro (Brisbane) 11 Aug. 13/2: Give good value / For your ‘greed,’ / Like Du Chaillu / In his screed. / Why, by Jumbo! / This ’ere spout / ’s worth a ‘thrumbo’ / roundabout.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 18/3: People there are who gladly pay to have this sort of thing crammed down their necks, and yet can sit for two hours in a church and listen to a parson prophesying their future away beyond this mundane sphere, and at the end yield up a paltry, reluctant thrummer.
1890		Aus. Star (Sydney) 11 Oct. 4/3: Then there is the public man and solid citizen, who goes to church rain or shine overy Sunday in the year, and lifts his eyes to the ceiling as he drops a ‘thrumbo’ in the plate.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 95: You see, if yer get a rozzer to call yer up he wants a shack stoner, but if I call ’em up I gets a thrummer a week.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 15 Apr. 1/1: A piece of four ‘thrums’ judiciously invested [...] would enable many a householder to buy a piano.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 85: Thrummer, a threepenny bit.
1899		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Jan. Red Page: [Letter from Loafer, Tauranga] Following are other local money-names [...] 3d. – thrum, half-tiz, tray or tray-piece.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 May 11/3: Silver or copper, ‘thrum’ or ‘brown,’ / Nothing relaxing, have ‘money down,’ / Build a nation; broaden a soul; / But see that you get the weekly dole.
1900		Truth (Sydney) 14 Oct. 5/2: But them lunches need the thumbo / He ain’t got it to his name.
1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 6 Oct. 1/1: The danger arises from the local infant’s penchant for sneaking a free ride [...] children repeatedly run the risk of being crushed to death for lack of the thrummer.
1902		Truth (Sydney) 16 Mar. 4/6: This in itself is enough to break the heart of any good Protestant ‘Christian,’ who always weeps when he parts with a thrumbo for a loaf of bread.
1908		Baltimore Sun (MD) 20 Sept. 17/5: ‘Thrum’ was the English 3 pence.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Sept. 10/1: I wakened when the plate came round, / I felt the burden of my sin, / I sought in haste until I found / A thrummer to put in.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Nov. 40/1: I had never yet been to a threepenny restaurant [...]. I wanted things to write about. What could be better? There should be more material in that thrum cafe than in the whole of the Arabian Night.
1911		Sun (Kalgoorlie) 25 June 4/7: Now what the hell’s a man to do [...] Without the guts to go on tramp, / Without the brains to work a ramp - / Without a thrumbo in his kick, / Without the takings of a trick?
1917		Sun (Sydney) 18 Sept. 4/4: I cannot raise a thrumbo fer a tram.
1923		Argus (Melbourne) 18 Sept. 9/1: Will she toil for years in the vineyard of St. Poorman’s, Collingwood, and grow grey in the task of separating the thrumbos from the trouser buttons in the collection-box?
1934		P. Allingham Cheapjack 37: ’Ere I’ve been workin’ for thrummers. Threepence a smudge!
1937		Mirror (Perth) 18 Dec. 25/5: Thrifty parents can stop saving their ‘thrummers,’ ‘truts,’ ‘tray-bits,’ or whatever happens to be the current vernacular for three penny bits.
1940		Advertiser (Adelaide) 30 Oct. 17/1: — Others were content to expend their thrumbos on icecreams, jellies, and, during winter months, a basin of hot peas, without the floater, from Old Jeff’.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 76: thrum: A 3d. piece.
1947		N. Lindsay Halfway to Anywhere 50: He got some return on it as an investment by lending it out to blokes at a thrummer a time.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 240/2: thrum – a threepence piece.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1, costing threepence.

1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 17 Jan. 1/1: One of them has deserted the thrummer for the tanner tiddley.
1917		Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 2 Sept. 4/8: The argument in the thrummer-beer bar was thick and, fast. The returned soldier was rocking it in hot and heavy to a mob of racecourse vermin.

3. ? the shell game, the ‘three-card trick’.

a.1790

‘The Flash Man of St. Giles’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 75: We have mill’d a precious go / And queer’d the flats at thrums, E, O.

4. a three-year sentence.

1848

Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 Feb. 1/4: I napped Thrums in Slangs.