two ha'pennies for a penny
English edit
Etymology edit
Suggesting that somebody has so little money that they could not even exchange somebody's penny for two halfpennies.
Noun edit
- (UK, 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.