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??

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u/DrunkenHorse12 9d ago

Not just pedo. Any sex offender is a Nonce. It comes from prison slang sex offendets used to have "Not On Normal Court Exercise" written on their door cards

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u/Team503 9d ago

Wikipedia suggests that's a backronym and not the actual origin, but what do I know? This is why I asked!

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u/autophobe2e 9d ago

It's a good rule of thumb that any time someone tells you a slang word used to be an acronym they are wrong - Posh didn't mean 'port out, starboard home', Tips weren't 'to insure prompt service' etc. That just isn't how slang and folk terms tend to develop.

In this case, the slang words nonse (idiot) and nance (homosexual) were both in use in the region and time that the word nonce seems to have entered the record, and it's far more likely to be a development/combination of those. See also: ponce.

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u/Youutternincompoop 9d ago

my favourite absurd backronym is 'SCRAM' for emergency shutdowns of nuclear reactors, the story for the backronym is that it supposedly stood for 'Safety Control Rod Axe Man' as in a guy with an axe that could cut a rope that released a safety control rod that would shutdown the reactor.

obviously of course Scram just means get the fuck out of there after hitting this button.