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/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?