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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

vonce en · NOUN · etymology 1

Etymology

Borrowed from Yiddish וואַנץ (vants, “bedbug”), by analogy to the English slang term roach. Attested since the 1950s.

Meanings

  1. (US, countable, slang, uncountable) Marijuana; cannabis, especially used as a drug.
  2. (countable, qualifier:Yiddish, uncountable) Something or someone small and annoying. Used more as a term of endearment than a criticism.
    • “Promise you'll come and visit your tanteh soon or I won't let you go, my little vonce!” said his aunt, tightening her hold. 2005, Jack Henry Markowitz, The Practice and Other Stories and Selected Poems, →ISBN, page 49:
    • Last week, I was coming home in the secluded dark of the just-post-solstice Hudson River Greenway. I vaguely make out a... well, a vonce would be the correct term. A little annoying thing in my mirror. 2006 January 10, Andy Gee, “Two events having to do with China”, in rec.bicycles.misc (Usenet):

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
vonces Number=Plur lexicographic

Synonyms

nuisance (something small and annoying) · marijuana (marijuana)

vonce en · NOUN · etymology 2

Pronunciation

Etymology

Uncertain; possibly from German Schwanz (“tail, slang for penis”) or Yiddish שוואַנץ (shvants, “penis”).

Meanings

  1. (slang) Sexual activity.
    • ... Soldiers, but whatever it stood for, it was a place where we could drink our rum, smoke our cigarettes, and “do the vonce”—a nickname for making love. 2011, Clark Terry, Gwen Terry, Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry, →ISBN, page 72:
    • Like we first met' and Checking in a lot of Hotels with those Twin Beds, my my how Lucille + I suffered every time that we did the Vonce (sex) you know? 2001, Louis Armstrong, Thomas David Brothers, Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings, →ISBN:
    • When you ain't sharin' sex with the one you love, you jest havin' sex, or, like the young folk say, you doin' the nasty. Doin' the vonce, what they called it back in my day. 2001, Aine A. Thang, Ms. Thang's Guide to Fly, →ISBN, page 23:
  2. (qualifier:jazz, slang) A state in which the musician produces great improvisation intuitively.
    • "Man, when I was with Basie," he'd say, "we'd come up on the vonce, and the man would put the ding-ding here." 2009, George Wein, Nate Chinen, Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, →ISBN, page 92:
    • Blowin' out here would be more like wailing into the heavenly vonce, rather then huffing and puffing changes in a dark cellar. 2009, Skoot Larson, The Dig You Later, Alligator Blues: A Lars Lindstrom Zen-Jazz Mystery, →ISBN:
    • Feeling his vonce before the soulfully enspirited Baltimore congregation, Gordon counts off the tempo for “Blues Up and Down,” the ritualistic set-closer, “roaring out the blocks hotter than a bowl of three-alarm chili, expatiating inventive verse after verse until the total rings up to an astounding 40,” in the words of Hollis. 2012, The Complete Prestige Recordings of Dexter Gordon (liner notes):
    • Re-hearing the Curtis Mayfield-avant soul of "Judgment", the proto-acid jazz groove vonce of "Tune Up", the neo-soul slow drag prophecy of "Rosemary Blue" (penned by Neil Sedaka!) 25 years later, I know now that I totally slept on a most seminal pop vocal album. 1999, Jazz Times - Volume 29, Issues 6-10, page 38:

vonce en · NOUN · etymology 3

Etymology

Uncertain; Possibly either of the etymologies listed above. Attested since the 1960s.

Meanings

  1. (US, qualifier:term of abuse, slang) A jerk; an unpleasant person.
    • That little vonce – that cockroach – shouldn't be anywhere near my place. 2011, Linda Fairstein, Death Dance, →ISBN:
    • That "Legs," I hate it and the little vonce knows it, so of course he's hittin me where I live, my lousy bowlegs. 1963, Irvin Faust, Entering Angel's world: a student-centered casebook, page 57:
    • Is that strict, you fucking vonce? Sorry to use such language in front of a woman 2001, David Mamet, Heist, Burbank, CA: Warner Bros, →ISBN:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
vonces Number=Plur lexicographic

vonce en · ADV · etymology 4

Etymology

See once.

Meanings

  1. (alt-of, not-comparable, pronunciation-spelling) Pronunciation spelling of once, imitative of German-accented or non-native English.
    alt of once
    • Shoost tells me vonce, what kind of emigrashun talk you tinks it pe to say, coom now to dis country und vork, und vork, put pe so pig a fool ash to leave your appetite pehint ! Ish dat you tink for vat de revolooshun vas? 1889, Henry Whitcomb Holley, Random Shots at Living Targets, page 57:
    • The ship it must pe going vonce again now. You vill pe again careful that the bottom of the sea it does not come up to hit her und stick her fast vonce? 1920, Dillon Wallace, The Ragged Inlet Guards, Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, →OCLC, page 50:
    • I vonce lov'd a maid, and vished much to tell her / I vanted to make her Mrs. Sam Veller 1843, William Evans Burton, The Yankee Among the Mermaids, and Other Waggeries and Vagaries, Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, page 190: