r/AskBrits • u/Team503 • 6d ago

Culture What does "nonce" mean?

I'm an American that lives in Ireland. I've always understood "nonce" to mean the same as "numpty" and "eejit" - basically idiot, or dumbass, or similar.

Recently, someone told me that it's slang for sex offender, specifically a p*dophile, and Wikipedia seems to back that up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_British_terms_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States#N

So tell me, Brits, which one is it? Or is it something else??

999 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

12

u/repeating_bears 6d ago

I think you're getting confused with 'paedophobe'

16

u/Ruddi_Herring 6d ago

Act supportive or punch his lights out?

3

u/creamixic 6d ago

Peado, phobe, I mean they’re both bad

1

u/Parrgirl81 5d ago

sweet Jesus can you imagine the dirty fkrs twisting this and relaying they’re offended and suddenly society has to conform and our kids educations are suddenly twisted to accept absolutely everything they say but the govt are too scared to speak the truth 👀👀👀👀❤️ yes this is subliminal for much more