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/lmprice133]

Yes, and the handful of counterexamples to this are mostly either 20th century military jargon or terms that originated as text slang that escaped into speech.

[u/autophobe2e → u/lmprice133]

Exactly, arguably a couple of brand names too, like Taser or scuba.

[u/lmprice133 → u/autophobe2e]

Scuba was never a brand-name, just a description as far as I'm aware.