penny
/ˈpɛni/ verb C2- To jam a door shut by inserting pennies between the doorframe and the door. · Zach and Ben had only been at college for a week when their door was pennied by the girls down the hall.
- To circumvent the tripping of an electrical circuit breaker by the dangerous practice of inserting a coin in place of a fuse in a fuse socket.
- During a meal or as part of a drinking game, to drop a penny in a person's drink with the expectation that they finish it (or some such variation thereof); commonly associated with crewdates at Oxford and swaps at Cambridge. · You got pennied! Down it, fresher.
He/she/it pennies · Past pennied · Past participle pennied · -ing form pennying
Verb forms
- Base form
- penny
- He/she/it
- pennies
- Past
- pennied
- Past participle
- pennied
- -ing form
- pennying
From the library
“He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other man should find the money for such an object, and that though he was a poor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing the obstacles which divided us.”
“Don’t look to me for a penny—not a penny!
There is as much difference to my eyes between the leaded bourgeois type of a Times article and the slovenly print of an evening half-penny paper as there could be between your negro and your Esquimau.
By the way, I have been reading a short but clear and interesting account of the old building, purchasable at the modest sum of one penny from the local tobacconist.”
Other matches
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