Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • That may be purchased for fourpence: as, fourpenny calico; a quart of fourpenny ale.
  • Of the value of fourpence: as, a fourpenny piece or bit.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective dated Costing fourpence.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective used of nail size; 1 3/8 in or 3.8 cm long

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

four +‎ penny

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Examples

  • So it only ran to a 'fourpenny' between you and 'the Panorama.'"

    Aladdin of London or, Lodestar Max Pemberton 1906

  • Tom, Dick, or Harry, on the strength of fourpenny slippers, tampering with it.

    DAN CULLEN, DOCKER 2010

  • Each person had one platter of this provision; after which were distributed to them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leather bags, with one penny, two-penny, threepenny, and fourpenny pieces of silver and shillings; to each about four pounds in value.

    04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 John 2004

  • Hundreds of women began as the eighteenth century drew on to add to their pin money, or to come to the rescue of their families by making translations or writing the innumerable had novels which have ceased to be recorded even in text – books, but are to be picked up in the fourpenny boxes in the Charing Cross Road.

    A room of one's own 2006

  • A fourpenny foreign adventurer! she ought to thank me on her knees.

    On Forsyte 'Change 2004

  • From above the latitude of Geneva a foreigner was, if not respected, at least human, but a foreigner from below was undoubtedly ‘fourpenny,’ if not less.

    On Forsyte 'Change 2004

  • When Istra opened the door, after tapping, the living-room was occupied by seven people, all interrupting one another and drinking fourpenny ale; seven people and a fog of cigarette smoke and a tangle of papers and books and hats.

    Our Mr. Wrenn 2004

  • Fortitude and keep a clerk busy for one hour while she picks out half a dozen fourpenny nails.

    Main Street 2004

  • No one ever heard her allude again to her “fourpenny foreigner.”

    On Forsyte 'Change 2004

  • To think that a fourpenny foreigner had cost him five hundred odd pounds!

    On Forsyte 'Change 2004

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