"spend a penny" meaning in English

See spend a penny in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-spend a penny.ogg Forms: spends a penny [present, singular, third-person], spending a penny [participle, present], spent a penny [participle, past], spent a penny [past]
Etymology: From the act of putting a (pre-decimal) penny in the slot of a pay-toilet cubicle. Head templates: {{en-verb|spend<,,spent> a penny}} spend a penny (third-person singular simple present spends a penny, present participle spending a penny, simple past and past participle spent a penny)
  1. (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, dated, euphemistic) To use the toilet. Tags: Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, dated, euphemistic

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "From the act of putting a (pre-decimal) penny in the slot of a pay-toilet cubicle.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spends a penny",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spending a penny",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spent a penny",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spent a penny",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spend<,,spent> a penny"
      },
      "expansion": "spend a penny (third-person singular simple present spends a penny, present participle spending a penny, simple past and past participle spent a penny)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Commonwealth English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English euphemisms",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Irish English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1982, Alan Bennett, “A Woman of No Importance”, in The Complete Talking Heads, Picador, published 2010, →ISBN, page 14:",
          "text": "I put on a lick of paint, slip over and spend a penny in Costing…I should technically use the one in Records but I've told them, that lavatory seat is a death trap.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To use the toilet."
      ],
      "id": "en-spend_a_penny-en-verb-vXpy95HW",
      "links": [
        [
          "toilet",
          "toilet"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, dated, euphemistic) To use the toilet."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth",
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "dated",
        "euphemistic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-spend a penny.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4a/En-au-spend_a_penny.ogg/En-au-spend_a_penny.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/En-au-spend_a_penny.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "spend a penny"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the act of putting a (pre-decimal) penny in the slot of a pay-toilet cubicle.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spends a penny",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spending a penny",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spent a penny",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spent a penny",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "spend<,,spent> a penny"
      },
      "expansion": "spend a penny (third-person singular simple present spends a penny, present participle spending a penny, simple past and past participle spent a penny)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "Commonwealth English",
        "English dated terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English euphemisms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Irish English",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1982, Alan Bennett, “A Woman of No Importance”, in The Complete Talking Heads, Picador, published 2010, →ISBN, page 14:",
          "text": "I put on a lick of paint, slip over and spend a penny in Costing…I should technically use the one in Records but I've told them, that lavatory seat is a death trap.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To use the toilet."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "toilet",
          "toilet"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, dated, euphemistic) To use the toilet."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth",
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "dated",
        "euphemistic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-spend a penny.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4a/En-au-spend_a_penny.ogg/En-au-spend_a_penny.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/En-au-spend_a_penny.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "spend a penny"
}

Download raw JSONL data for spend a penny meaning in English (1.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (ca09fec and c40eb85). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.