''twopenny'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260717124906-00-⌔

twopenny - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

twopenny (not comparable)

• Having a value or cost of twopence.
• Cheap; worthless; petty.
  • ✤ A pretty degree of knighthood, sir, is that which can be bought with sugar-hogs-heads! and then your twopenny marquisates¹
  • ✤ As the door slammed Pete turned to Hally, fuming. “Can you tie that? A little twopenny cold frightening him off.”²

Noun

twopenny (countable and uncountable, plural twopennies)

• (UK, countable, dated) A coin or stamp worth two pence.
  • ✤ When the Gauls attacked Rome, he hit upon the plan of pelting the soldiers with twopennies to make them believe they had plenty to eat.³
• (UK, uncountable, obsolete) Ale sold for two pence per quart.
• (UK, countable, slang, obsolete) A person’s head.
  • ✤ “It flew all to pieces; and didn’t we get it! But look here, Merry, are you on?”
    “Yes; tuck in your twopenny.”
    “No springing, mind.”⁴

Etymology

• From two +‎ penny.
• (head): George Orwell explains this in Down and Out in Paris and London as rhyming slang: head > loaf of bread > twopenny loaf > twopenny.

Printed 2026-07-17.

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Footnotes

1. 1888, James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, page 145: ↩

2. 1940, Woman’s Home Companion, volume 67, numbers 1-4, page 134: ↩

3. 1852, Edward Litt L. Blanchard, Freaks and follies of fabledom, page 93: ↩

4. 1880, Our Boys’ Paper, page 411: ↩