get-penny

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

get-penny (plural get-pennies)

1. (colloquial, dated) Something that makes money; a financially successful affair.

   Synonyms: money-spinner, moneymaker

   • 1605 August (first performance), Geo[rge] Chapman, Ben Ionson, Ioh[n] Marston, Eastward Hoe. […], London: […] [George Eld] for William Aspley, published September 1605, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     thou and thy acts become the posies for hospitals; when thy name shall be written upon conduits, and thy deeds played i' thy lifetime by the best companies of actors, and be called their get-penny.

   • 1728, Daniel Defoe, Augusta Triumphans:

     if a pack of hackney scribblers shall attack me only by way of a get-penny, I shall not be provoked to answer them

Alternative forms

• getpenny

References

• “get-penny”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.