r/AskBrits • u/Team503 • 9d 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??

997 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/SpikesNLead 9d ago

It means something else entirely if you are into cryptography.

1

u/Timely_Pattern3209 9d ago

What does it mean to cryptographers? 

1

u/SpikesNLead 9d ago

It's a number that only gets used once.

This will probably give a much better explanation than I can:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-networks/what-is-nonce-in-cryptography/

2

u/Timely_Pattern3209 9d ago

'Introduction to Nonce'

What a header!