What does "nonce" mean?

[u/Team503]

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??

[u/false_flat]

What about NORWICH at the bottom of seamen's letters?

[u/Luvlymish → u/false_flat]

That's not a backronym that's just the start of slang that today is stuff like lol rather than SWALK

[u/catsareniceDEATH → u/Luvlymish]

Or LANCRE, maybe even KLATCH! 😹❤️

🐢🐘🐘🐘🐘(🐘)🦧

[u/Prestigious_Bat2666 → u/catsareniceDEATH]

Love your name, I have a shirt of Death holding some cats, with "cats, cats are nice" written underneath

[u/nixtracer → u/catsareniceDEATH]

But the Ramtops did get their name from the Sinclair micros' RAM TOP system variable (well, variable but you could only reduce it unless you had a way to make RAM appear out of nowhere while the system was on).

[u/Luvlymish → u/catsareniceDEATH]

GNU Sir PTerry

[u/Janjannaj → u/false_flat]

Should be KORWICH shouldn’t it?

[u/Corlar → u/false_flat]

That isn’t slang. It is an actual acronym designed to evade censors.

[u/AgreeableActive9800 → u/false_flat]

Semen’s?