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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

tenpence to the shilling en · X

Etymology

The British shilling was worth twelve pence, so tenpence would be a deficient exchange.

Meanings

  1. (UK, dated, slang) Mentally deficient.
    • I knew that chap; but he never was more nor tenpence to the shilling. He was one of the men, we say, who fell out of his cradle and knocked his head. 1909, Edward R. Hartley, Train Talks, page 4:
    • He felt no curiosity about news or daily events, and was getting to be looked on as 'tenpence to the shilling' in the head. 1951, Crichton Porteous, Wild Acres, page 203:
    • Whenever he did manage to engineer a meeting she always treated him as if he was only tenpence to the shilling, a few bricks short of a load, as if he needed another brain cell to qualify as a plant. 2011, Ruth Hamilton, A Whisper To The Living: