Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the head, the brain.

1567		G. Turbervile Epitaphes, epigrams, etc. 105: A curled Sconce he hath, with angrie frowning browe.
1576		G. Whetstone ‘Ortchard of Repentance’ in Rocke of Regard 190: A night cap, sure, or else a lyned hood, Beseemde my skonce.
1591		Lyly Man in the Moone III iii: I must hoop my sconce with iron lest my head break.
1600		J. Day Blind Beggar of Bednall-Green Act II: I’ll have another bout with ye, or I’ll make your sconce and the post ring noon together.
1609		Dekker Gul’s Horne-Booke 14: To maintaine therefore, that sconce of thyne, strongly guarded [...] neuer suffer combe to fasten his teeth there.
1611		L. Barry Ram-Alley II i: I say no more, But ’tis withinn this skonse to goe beyond them.
1620		J. Howell Familiar Letters (1737) I 12 May 42: He took the round Cover of the Close-stool, and clap’d it on his bald Sconce.
c.1629		R. Brome City Wit I i: What Scold hath scutch’d thy skonce.
1637		J. Taylor Drinke and Welcome 4: This drinke is of a most hot nature, as being compos’d of Spices, and if it once scale the sconce [...] it doth much to accellerate nature.
1642		Dr. H. More Psychodia iii 13: Which their dull sconces cannot eas’ly reach [F&H].
c.1650		J. Howell Familiar Letters 24 Jan. (1737) III 454: She [...] threw a piss-pot on his sconce.
1659		Greene & Lodge Lady Alimony II v: Praxatiles could ne’er portray him better, Nor lodge his sconce more fitly.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 183: With my Battoon I’le bang his Sconce.
1767		J. O’Keeffe The She-Gallant 20: If I ever marry, may this foolish sconce of mine be adorn’d with a pair of horns.
1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) II 125: He would have willingly concealed the affair, but he bawled out [...] and, running into the house, exposed his back and his sconce to the whole family.
1783		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Lyric Odes’ Works (1794) I 69: Whatever first came in his sconce.
1792		C. Dibdin ‘Sa Whack’ Buck’s Delight 66: To be sure in three minutes the taef would not feel / O’er his sconce a tight bit of shelaly.
1800		Sporting Mag. Sept. XVI 284/2: A glass! beshrew your empty sconce! / We want a chamber-pot.
1810		C. Dibdin Yngr New Comic Pantomime called The Astrologer 18: Blockheads! dunces! I’ll break your sconces!
1822		‘Life in London’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 131: My sconce you’ve broken — for your joking / You shall to the watch-house go.
1835		‘Tim Snip’ in Cove in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 217: So saying, ’gainst the coffin he gave his sconce a knock.
1836		Tennessean (Nashville, TN) 24 Sept. 2/3: Then he claps his hand on one side of the little feller’s sconce box .
1838		J.C. Neal Charcoal Sketches (1865) 74: A hyst of itself is bad enough, without being sniggered at: first your sconce gets a crack; then, you see all sorts of stars.
1841		‘The Four & Nine’ Dublin Comic Songster 127: With an air of self-delight, I placed it on my sconce.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 July 3/2: The defendants rushed out, threatening him with all sorts of spiflication. and if he did not cut his stick they would smash his — sconce.
1851		Melville Moby Dick (1907) 390: They cracked each other’s sconces with their yard-sticks.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1862		Belfast News Letter 15 Jan. 4/2: Whenever I hear a man abuse Ould Ireland, I have a sad fault of cracking his sconce with my shillaly.
1862		Dly Delta (New Orleans, LA) 11 Oct. 1/4: One has a sconce box yet, filled with its normal condition of brains.
1867		‘A Pair of Irish Janus’s’ Champagne Charley Songster 46: We’ll make the spalpeens shout, / When on their sconce we’ll rattle.
1874		West Briton & Cornwall Advertiser 26 Nov. 3/6: Monk [...] rushed towards him and smashed the offensive object over his sconce.
1879		Morn. Appeal (Carson City, NV) 14 Feb. 2/3: A tough headed man [...] had his sconce box operated on by an axe in the hands of an infuriated woodsman.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 7: Sconce - The head (Dutch.
1884		Daily Cairo Bull. (IL) 9 Jan. 3/3: Meeting the bald-headed citizen [...] he opened fire on him touching the bareness of his sconce.
1891		Leeds Times 9 May 6/4: My husband [...] took a life preserver, or as he generally calls it, a ‘bobby-dazzler’, and struck the scientific mesmerist a blow over the sconce.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 70: Sconce, the head; sense or judgment.
1900		T. Dreiser Sister Carrie 465: ‘Get out of this!’ cried the officer, swinging his club. ‘I’ll give you a bat on the sconce.’.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 54: The general may be bugs, but he’s there with the ideas. There’s something in his sconce beside hayseed.
1912		D. Runyon ‘The Fight Fan’ 15 Feb. [synd. col.] Two of them sat on me sconce piece, an’ three of ’em leaned on me shin .
1913		Day Book (Chicago) 23 Aug. 28/1: I’ll put you jo whether you can put the finger on him [...] or get tossed outa here on your sconce.
1922		Morn. Tulsa Daily World (OK) 17 Dec. 74/4: A mutton-headed cake-eateh naow, with his haih all slicked on his skonce with cocoa butteh.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Little Miss Marker’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 299: A guy [...] offers to bounce a sugar bowl off of Mindy’s sconce if he does not mind his own business.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Feature Snatch!’ Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective Feb. 🌐 Hanley [...] was plucking at the tufts of grey fuzz around his bald sconce.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 27: He has an extra large sconce piece that is practically a deformity.
1953		‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 24: I was going to [...] get one of those quart beer bottles from the case on the floor and break it over his sconce.
1968		D. O’Grady A Bottle of Sandwiches 6: You’re not right in the sconce.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 108: I had them until an upper-class twit tapped me on the sconce and lifted them.
1997		Share Slanguage 10/2: baldy peelo, baldy sconce jeer at child with head shaved on account of ringworm etc.

2. a person (whose head it is).

1577

T. Kendall Flowers of Epigrammes 94b: Bartlet a pleasant sconse, whose mirthe all men did muche delight [OED].

3. judgement, sense.

1586		A. Day Eng. Secretorie II (1625) 47: Master B. found Socrates in my Letter, and sent to seeke out your well reputed skonce to expound it [OED].
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1883		Century mag. (NY) XXVI. 915/2: To put it [the sum] up to twelve dollars...if she...showed any sconce for the business .

4. the penis.

1797

Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 100: His whoring sconce / Can only trim us one at once.

5. (Irish/Cork, also sconse) a glance, a quick look.

2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles 114: [T]here was this woman beside me taking a good long sconse. I guess I looked like I was about to knock shit over for kicks.
2019		A. Killilea Boyo-wulf at https://boyowulf.home.blog 22 Apr. 🌐 [T]hey had an old sconce at the footprints.