Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see separate entry.

1. a boy looking for chance work driving animals to a cattle-market slaughter-house.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues 168/1: Penny-boy [...] a boy who haunted the cattle markets on the chance of driving beasts to the slaughter-house.

2. (Ulster) anyone seen as being at the beck and call of someone else.

1914		Joyce ‘The Dead’ Dubliners (1956) 216: He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as penny-boy for his aunts.
1930		P. O’Donnell Knife 47: ‘Do you think I am a penny boy for Dan Sweeney?’ Father Burns said angrily .
1966		P. Boyle At Night All Cats Are Grey 104: You’d make a penny-boy out of Solomon himself.

a small loaf.

1838		Sam Weller’s Budget of Recitations 119/1: Is this a penny buster vot I sees afore me, / Von end of vich does pint tovards my hand.
1847		Strawberry Hill 243: General Caesar marched against him, and it was soon found to be a peck loaf to a half-penny buster.
1863		Cornhill Mag. Nov. 614: One penny loaf (a ‘penny buster’ used to be the name, perhaps is so still).
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 216: The London boys used to call the small new-made loaves, two-penny busters.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1879		Canadian Methodist Mag. 10 349: I hadn’t had not a mouthful of grub since the morning of the day afore, and then on’y half shares of a penny buster .
1886		Arthur’s Home Mag. 54 554/2: A penny lump of pease pudding, to be found at any cook shop, outswells a penny ‘buster,’ and with immense odds to spare.
1894		A. Chevalier ‘Blue Ribbon Jane’ 🎵 She’d a penny buster, an’ a sav’ry sav’ / She'd a sheep’s ’ead stuffed with sage .

(W.I./UK black) one who is willing to work for derisory pay.

2001

(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 91: Der was ah time when people did respeck me [...] now, everyone jus’ see me as ah penny ketcha.

1. a sensationally written ‘true crime’ story, sold for one penny.

1859		Pamphlets - Homoeopathic 7: It all reads like some sensational tale in a penny-dreadful newspaper.
1868		Sportsman 18 Mar. 2/1: Notes on News [...] The Illustrated Police News is a good example of how the penny-horrible will sell in this moral country.
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 70: In the shop window of the newsvendor round the corner, he sees displayed all in a row, a long line of ‘penny numbers’, the mere illustrations pertaining to which makes his heart palpitate.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 31: Their readings had been of the ‘Jack Sheppard’ and ‘Claude Duval’ style of literature in the penny dreadfuls.
1879		Barman & Barmaid 12 July 4/1: A sweet young thing [...] inserted a matrimonial advertisment a short time ago in one of the penny ‘disgusters’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 July 12/3: To the influence of blood-and-thunder tales, acting upon an imaginative mind, that fate, too, may be in some measure attributed. […] [T]he reading of ‘penny awfuls’ – possibly of the Evening News order – undoubtedly made his mind eagerly recipient of the seductive falsehoods of Scott.
1891		Sporting Times 17 Jan. 7/1: He was beetle-browed and surly-visaged, of course [...] tramps always are in ‘penny ’orribles’.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 57: Penny Dreadfuls, penny publications brimful of a disordered mind.
1898		A.J. Boyd Shellback 349: That is all nonsense, and may go down on the stage or in ‘Penny Dreadfuls’.
1900		Marvel 8 Dec. 14: Such as they were accustomed to read about in the ‘penny horribles’.
1906		O.C. Malvery Soul Market 84: The reading these girls most favoured was [...] ‘Penny Shockers’.
1906		G.R. Sims Mysteries of Modern London 139: It was [...] a widely entertained idea that for a great deal of juvenile crime the sensational stories called ‘Penny Dreadfuls’ were largely responsible.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 243: They seldom come to any moral harm, in spite of all the talk about the penny dreadful.
1914		R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 15: It’s my belief that ’arf the money we gives ’im is spent in penny ’orribles.
1922		Aberdeen Jrnl 6 June 4/2: One of the young murderers blamed the pictures, but, like the old penny dreadful, the pictuires are carrying more than their fair share of abuse.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1935		R.T. Hopkins Life and Death at the Old Bailey 146: He is, in the old penny dreadfuls, ‘Peace: The Man with a Hundred Faces’.
1953		R. Garland Heart in Exile 188: I always felt the penny-dreadful was the real novel.
1984		S. King Thinner (1986) 76: He can’t let himself believe in anything as ridiculous old-world, as superstitious, as penny-dreadful-novel as Gypsy curses.
1996		A. Close Official and Doubtful 73: They are passing a mock-up of Fifties newsagent’s, its shelves of Woodbine and Park Drive, penny dreadfuls and women’s magazines.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1846		J.R. Browne Etchings of a Whaling Cruise 27: The penny-dreadful qualities of the proposed ‘Adventures of Roger’.
1874		Examiner 14 Nov. 18/1: It waas nothing more than a superior description of a ‘Penny-Dreadful;’ romance.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) Aug. 353: I do not maintain that the ‘penny dreadful’ mine is altogether exhausted.
1882		Huddersfield Chron. 20 Mar. 4/3: The sole effect [of] such penny-dreadful language [...] is a conviction that the user thereof is an ass.
1891		J. Bent Criminal Life 175: I began to read some of the penny-dreadful stuff.
1902		Yorks. Eve. Post 8 Mar. 3/3: [headline] Penny-Dreadful Methods.
1915		Sun. Post (Lanarks.) 1 Aug. 6/7: The usual public impression gleaned from the cinema and yarns of the ‘penny-dreadful’ species.
1941		Western Times 21 Feb. 4/7: Known as ‘The Penny-dreadful King,’ Mr Barry Ono [...] made a hobby collecting copies of the old-time thrillers.
1995		A. Sillitoe Life Without Armour (1996) 28: We [...] passed rainy afternoons in a large mouldy-smelling hut at the end of the garden reading bound issues of Penny Dreadful magazines.

see under gaff n.¹

(Aus.) two-up.

1966

J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 104: [He] has not played the penny game for more than 10 years.

see under gush n.²

(orig. naut.) a cellar or basement which features ropes strung from side to side on which drunken or exhausted clients, orig. sailors, drape themselves for a fitful sleep; in the morning one end of the rope is untied and the sleepers are dumped on the floor.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 868: [...] C.19.

a poor alehouse.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(S.Afr. black) a cheap prostitute.

1959

L. Longmore Dispossessed n.p.: You Shoeshone women! You are terrible ‘pennylines’!

(UK Und.) a coward.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

see separate entry.

pimples found on a heavy drinker’s face.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

a sausage.

1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 170: He bought a penny puzzle [...] A penny puzzle – a saveloy, that is.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 194/2: Penny puzzle (Street, 1883). Sausage – because it is never found out.

see separate entry.

see penny dreadful

1. a penny roll.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. the cheapest brand of cigars, three for twopence.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

see under stinker n.¹

see under swag n.¹

see under toff n.

see separate entry.

usu. of a woman, rich but unattractive.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Penny-white, said of her, to whom Fortune has been kinder than Nature.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].

used to indicate a percentage of non-white parentage.

1859

G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: Mrs. Chunam, who, as it is declared, has eleven pence out of the shilling of Hindoo blood floating in her veins.

a hack journalist.

1902

H. Baumann Londinismen (2nd edn).

to urinate.

1935		M. Harrison Spring in Tartarus 254: That’s the first thing I learn in any language. That, and how to spend a penny.
1945		Edie Rutherford 11 May diary in Garfield Our Hidden Lives (2004) 24: I waited in a queue to spend a 1d.
1945		H. Lewis Strange Story 27: ‘Us girls,’ she said, ‘are going to spend a penny!’.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 149: He lay so still that a cheeky squirrel took him for a fixture and spent a penny on him.
1959		M. Richler Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1964) 162: Mr Friar went to spend a penny.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 20: While Barry spends a penny Hoot and his friends sing a few tunes.
1969		R. Rendell Best Man To Die (1981) 18: I expect Clytemnestra has spent a penny by now.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 15: She’d spent a penny, then popped upstairs.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 16: That specifically feminine usage ‘to spend a penny’ (men’s urinals are free) may well have as long a life as to be ‘down in the dumps’.
1986		A. Bleasdale No Surrender 80: I’ve got to go and pay a penny, Freda.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 287: But before they get there Thel has to spend a penny.
1997		P. Theroux Kowloon Tong 54: You tell him, Mr Hung, while I spend a penny.