Green’s Dictionary of Slang

funt n.

£1.

1824		letter 28 Dec. in Pierce Egan’s Life in London (10 Apr. 1825) 83/2: [He] told us to be careful, for the pig-men (officers) were up in arms, one of which had offered Phillips ten funt (sovereigns) to say where he could pick us up.
1839		H. Brandon Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 163/1: Foonts – sovereigns, 20s.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 Feb. 1/4: Did you make a lob, Benney? A funt, that ere’s all.
1847		G.M.W. Reynolds Mysteries of London III 66/1: The skin had three finnips and a foont.
1855		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 Aug. 2/7: The rasing of a ‘funt’ was a domestic difficulty which could not be surmounted.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 41: FOONT, a sovereign, or 20s.
1860		R. Nicholson Rogue’s Progress (1966) 111: The colonel [...] said, ‘Give me a funt [...] Fork out a couter’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 502: The mob got me up a break (collection), and I got between five and six foont (sovereigns).
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Foont - Sovereign; 20s.
1887		‘Dagonet’ ‘A Plank Bed Ballad’ Referee 12 Feb. n.p.: My trip – cuss the day as I seen her- / She sold off my home to some pals in her mob, / For a couple of foont and ten deener.
1895		Mirror of Life 5 Jan. 11/4: ‘I have just paid £I3 to my tailor for clothes, and I have only a “funt” (a sov) left’.
1896		‘Thieves’ Sl.’ Gent.’s Mag. CCLXXXI Oct. 350: We may mention ‘foont’ (sovereigns, Pfund).
1923		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 11 Aug. 15/4: As the bottle passed round she chats us. ‘In his top inside kick most of it, and a couple of funt in his hlpper’.
1923		Northern Whig 12 Sept. 8/6: I was fullied, and a black-box asked a couple of foont and ten deaner to be my mouthpiece.
1926		Portsmouth Eve. News 23 Nov. 4/4: A man with [...] only £1 or £2 is a ‘case phunt’ or a ‘deuce phunt’. If he has £5 he is a ‘flim’. £10 an ‘Uncle Ben’, and more than that a ‘John Peel’ or a ‘Sarker’.
1934		P. Allingham Cheapjack 38: A pound is a ‘phunt,’ a ‘bar,’ or a ‘nicker’.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 293/1: funt a pound (money).