two ha'pennies for a penny

English

Etymology

Suggesting that somebody has so little money that they could not even exchange somebody's penny for two halfpennies.

Noun

two ha'pennies for a penny

  1. (Britain, idiomatic, dated, in negative constructions) Any money whatsoever.
    • 1962, Edith Juliet Rich Isaacs, Theatre Arts, volume 46, page 114:
      I bet you he hasn't got two ha'pennies for a penny — they never have, these people.
    • 1963, New Society (volume 2, page 10)
      A lot of rowdy-dowdies, poverty stricken — blunt but true, they haven't got two ha'pennies for a penny — dirty, no interest in their children.
    • 1980, Robert Barltrop, ‎Jim Wolveridge, The Muvver Tongue (page 18)
      In that condition he hasn't got a halfpenny to scratch himself with — an irreverent departure from the pious 'not a penny to bless himself'; or two ha'pennies for a penny, nor a brass farthing or a penny to his name.
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