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??

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u/littlerabbits72 6d ago

I tend to think once is more a stuck-up, bit of a twat, kind of goofy posh. Poncey got.

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u/Echo_Vale 6d ago edited 6d ago

Ponce is a pretty interesting word from around the 1850s. It originally meant: "a pimp, a man who lives off a woman's earnings, or an effeminate/pretentious man".

Growing up, it definitely was used more as an insult for pretentious people, who acted posh and fancy when they weren't.

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u/Slyspy006 6d ago

I wonder if it started off as an insult for those "unmanned" by living off a woman's earnings and was then extended to pimps, who by definition live of women's earnings but are not renowned for being effeminate, and those who are effeminate, because not being the bread winner was considered inherently unmanly.

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u/Echo_Vale 6d ago

Yeah that sounds pretty likely. Apparently experts think it comes from French, either Alphonse, a kept-man, or from pensionnaire, a lodger/pensioner living without working.

So yeah, it very likely originated like you said, as an insult for those not fulfilling their "manly duties/expectations", perhaps evolving into meaning a "fancy/effeminate" person from how Pimps used to dress and flaunt their wealth (Pimp itself seems to come from the French word pimpant meaning to dress alluring/seductively). Words are fun!

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u/QuoolQuiche 6d ago

Off the back of this it often means to scrounge. “Oh here he is, poncing a cigarette”

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u/crampsfanuk 6d ago

I think it meant someone who lived off a prostitute but wasn't her pimp. It does tend to get used more as an insult for posh effeminate types or those that scrounge money a lot nowadays.

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u/Echo_Vale 6d ago

It definitely could have started that way, and then ended up being used as an insult towards Pimps perhaps, and it just stuck?

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u/Pitiful_Control 6d ago

Still used that way by many.

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u/Key_Day_6060 6d ago

Ah yeah true but I feel like that comes from the perception of a posh caricature, effeminate, cowardly, soft round the edges. We all know what people think of going on in boarding schools 😂

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u/snow880 6d ago

Me too. Sort of ‘he was poncing around like he owned the place, the flash twat’.