tuppenny

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Alternative forms

• twopenny

Adjective

tuppenny (not comparable)

1. (British, Australia, becoming old-fashioned) Literally, worth tuppence (two pence); of little value or status.
   • Pop Goes the Weasel, a well-known English nursery rhyme

     Half a pound of tuppenny rice,
     Half a pound of treacle.
     That’s the way the money goes,
     Pop! goes the weasel.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter XI, p. 184, [1]

     Then they went off to prepare for the journey […] , Peter filling his six-penny pipe with tuppenny tobacco.

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 101:

     The City & South London initially had a flat single fare of 2d., but it was the Central London Railway, opened ten years later, that would be nicknamed 'The Tuppenny Tube' for its flat fare of the same amount. The Central was so-called by the Daily Mail, [...]

Noun

tuppenny (plural tuppennies)

1. (British, dated) A coin or stamp worth two pence.
2. (British, dated, juvenile) In the children's game of leapfrog, the head (perhaps named from a tuppenny loaf).
   • W. S. Gilbert, The Gondoliers

     A Lord High Chancellor is a personage of great dignity, who should never, under any circumstances, place himself in the position of being told to tuck in his tuppenny, except by noblemen of his own rank.

Derived terms

• tuppenny-ha'penny
• tuppenny upright