[‘ No money; nothing.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈnʌp(ə)ns/, U.S. /ˈnəp(ə)ns/
Etymology: < /n-/ (in no adj.) + -uppence (in tuppence, variant of twopence n.).
/Brit./ /colloq./
No money; nothing.
Use of the word has declined since the introduction of decimal coinage in Britain in 1971.
1883 A. Lang in /Longman’s Mag./ Sept. 517 The wrong copy..is..worth exactly ‘nuppence’ to the collector.
1886 A. Lang in /Longman’s Mag./ Mar. 551 The Americans can get our books, and do get them, and republish them and give us nothing—that awful minus quantity, ‘nuppence’!
1964 /Observer/ 20 Sept. 27/7 Living on nuppence.
1973 /Times Lit. Suppl./ 30 Mar. 347/4 For the appreciation of the novel, this information matters little more than nuppence.
1997 /Independent/ (Nexis) 6 Sept. (Books section) 2 Perhaps a future translator will devise a better English equivalent than ‘lovence’, which sounds too like a chirpy declension from thruppence to tuppence and plenty of nuppence.