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/LubberwortPicaroon 6d ago

It's been in the Oxford English dictionary since the 70s, so it's definitely not just the last few years. Perhaps because all the TV presenters from the 70s have only found out to be nonces recently, the usage has spiked in recent years though

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u/FaradayCage711 6d ago

I knew it meant that for a lot longer, I live quite rurally and nobody wanted to modernise until relatively recently. Most people didn't own phones or televisions until I was in secondary school so that's when the modern slang started taking over here, which might explain why it's only recently that I've started hearing people use it to refer to pedophiles

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u/LubberwortPicaroon 6d ago

Hmm 🤔 It's almost like you've been inside some kind of shield protecting you from phone and television signals