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Pennyworth   Listen
noun
Pennyworth  n.  
1.
A penny's worth; as much as may be bought for a penny. "A dear pennyworth."
2.
Hence: The full value of one's penny expended; due return for money laid out; a good bargain; a bargain. "The priests sold the better pennyworths."
3.
A small quantity; a trifle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pennyworth" Quotes from Famous Books



... it is true; and one side plumes itself on the moral support of Royalty and the aristocracy, while the other always bawls out that it has the inviolable will of the people at its back,—I daresay one assertion is about as true as the other—but I don't think there is a pennyworth of difference, really. There used to be a lot, mind you, when the Plebs were really struggling for a footing in the scheme of things; but bless you! we are all more or less in the same crowd now. Just a ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... prison for no cause but to be kept, though there be never so great a charge against him, yet his keeper, if he be good and honest, is neither so cruel as to pain the man out of malice, nor so covetous as to put him to pain to make him seek his friends and pay for a pennyworth of ease. If the place be such that he is sure to keep him safe otherwise, or if he can get surety for the recompense of more harm than he seeth he should have if he escaped, he will never handle him in any such hard fashion as we most abhor imprisonment for. But marry, if the place be such ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... rejoined Mrs. Ellis, "for his old grand-daddy made yeast enough to raise the whole family. Many a pennyworth has he sold me. Laws! how the poor old folk do get up! I think I can see the old man now, with his sleeves rolled up, dealing out his yeast. He wore one coat for about twenty years, and used to be always ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... was in a court close to St. Martin's Church—at the back of the Church,—which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, two pennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand,—somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart. ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... I think the best way of flooring this question is to say what I should do if I made the voyage. Take a cup of chocolate at Aerated Bread Company, with two pennyworth of butter and cake; then to the Lowther Arcade, to get some toys for the young 'uns. Next to GATTI'S Restaurant for Lunch. Being a good day for Matinees, look in at TERRY'S for First Act of Sweet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... towards the supposed suppliant for his vote. "I presume, Sir, you want my vote and interest at this momentous epoch of your life?" Abernethy, who hated humbugs, and felt nettled at the tone, replied: "No, I don't: I want a pennyworth of figs; come, look sharp and wrap them up; I ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... escaped hanging, but there's something that's worse than hanging, to my mind, and that is the state of a man whom nobody will trust. You've come to that; and if you had a spark of gentlemanly feeling, you'd have bought two-pennyworth of rope and hung yourself rather than come ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... Serene Highness, ask her not! A virtuous young lady, she, and come of a stainless Family!—In brief, she hooks, she of all the fishes in the pool, this lumber of a Duke; enchants him, keeps him hooked; and has made such a pennyworth of him, for the last twenty years and more, as Germany cannot match. [Michaelis, iii. 440.] Her brother Gravenitz the page has become Count Gravenitz the prime minister, or chief of the Governing Cabal; she Countess Gravenitz ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... "Look at him now. Here he is as soft as two pennyworth of butter. But in the theatre, if things do not go quite as he wants them—oh la la! It is Right turn—Quick march! Brr! And I who speak have to do just ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... thou buyest, offer reasonable gain for the thing thou wouldst have, and if this will not do with the buyer or seller, then seek thee a more honest chapman. If thou objectest, But I have not skill to know when a pennyworth is before me, get some that have more skill than thyself in that affair, and let them in that matter dispose of thy money. But if there were no knaves in the world these ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... looking as though they had within them a faint remembrance of long-distant respectability. With anxious eyes they peer about, as though searching in the streets for other lodgers. Where do they get their daily morsels of bread, and their poor cups of thin tea,—their cups of thin tea, with perhaps a pennyworth of gin added to it, if Providence be good! Of this state of things Mrs Roper had a lively appreciation, and now, poor woman, she feared that she was reaching it, by the aid of the Lupexes. On the present occasion she carved her joint of meat in silence, and ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... suddenly altered, Captain being Chaos mainly; in swampy countries, by overflowing rivers, in hunger, hot weather, forced marches; till it was marched gradually off its feet; and the clouds of chaotic Turks, who did finally show face, had a cheap pennyworth of it. Never was such a campaign seen as this of Seckendorf in 1737, said mankind. Except indeed that the present one, Campaign of 1738, in those parts, under a different hand, is still worse; and the Campaign of 1739, under still a different, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... hot!—if you are cold, Have a pennyworth of heat, Something nice and warm to hold, Something nice and warm to eat. Munch your chestnuts up, and then, If your toes want warming too, Say, 'I'll have another ten, Just to warm ...
— London Town • Felix Leigh

... pound and a half, Mary. And get it Cumberland ham, for Wilson comes from there-away, and it will have a sort of relish of home with it he'll like,—and Mary" (seeing the lassie fain to be off), "you must get a pennyworth of milk and a loaf of bread—mind you get it fresh and new—and, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... nodded at Harry, who said it was a dirty day, and called for his pot of small ale and his pennyworth of Spanish tobacco. Mr. Hadley was civil enough to pass him a pipe from the box. Both gentlemen smoked ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... the devil the best pennyworth that he meets with anywhere, and, like the Indians that part with gold for glass beads, he damns his soul for the slightest trifles imaginable. He betroths himself oftener to the devil in one day than Mecaenas did in a week to his wife, that he was married a thousand times to. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... you, and I with my great club, Must walk to him, and eat a sillabub; And we shall make merry, And sing tyrl on the bery, With Simkin Sydn'am Sumn'nor That killed a cat at Cumnor; There the trifling taborer, troubler of Tunis, Will pick Peter Pie-baker a pennyworth of prunes; Nichol Nevergood a net and a nightcap Knit will for Kit, whose knee caught a knap; David Doughty, dighter of dates, Grin with Godfrey Good-ale will greedy at the gates; Tom Tumbler of Tewksbury, turning at a trice, Will wipe William Waterman, if he be not wise: Simon Sadler of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... proud," Jim said quietly. "All the people about made no end of a fuss about her, but Norah never seemed to think a pennyworth about it. Fact is, her only thought at first was that Dad would think she had broken her promise to him. She looked up at him in the first few minutes, with her poor, swollen old eyes. 'I didn't forget my promise, Dad, dear,' she said. 'I never touched the fire—only ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... from his wife she buys a pennyworth of Dragon's Blood, wraps it in paper, and places it under her pillow when she goes to bed, and it is sure ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack

... doctors of the Sorbonne and all the lawyers of the Palais. But his magnificence grew as wearisome to him as his poverty had been before; and not one of the doctors whom he consulted could give him a pennyworth of consolation. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... farthing, for that the five hundred pieces thou returnedst to me I sent incontinent to Naples to lay out in cloths to be brought hither; and should I go about at this present to sell the merchandise I have here, I should scarce get a penny for two pennyworth, for that it is no time for selling. Nor am I yet so well known that I could find any here to help me to this, wherefore I know not what to do or to say; for, if I send not the monies speedily, the merchandise will be carried off to Monaco ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... often disappeared before r. Thus denree, lit. a pennyworth, appears in Anglo-French as darree. Similarly Henry became Harry, except in Scotland, and the English Kings of that name were always called Harry by their subjects. It is to this pronunciation that we owe the popularity ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... have truly sworn they had been a parcel of your petty spiritual usurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others, to buy store of mandates, a pennyworth of a ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... in six months Twelve thousand ducats, and (to my acquaintance) Receiv'd in dowry with you not one Julio: 'Twas a hard pennyworth, the ware being so light. I yet but draw the curtain; now to your picture: You came from thence a most notorious strumpet, ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... tobyman of his day, has got to say on the subject. "His life—the highwayman's—has, generally, the most mirth and the least care in it of any man's breathing, and all he deals for is clear profit: he has that point of good conscience, that he always sells as he buys, a good pennyworth, which is something rare, since he trades with so small a stock. The fence[27] and he are like the devil and the doctor, they live by one another; and, like traitors, 'tis best to keep each other's counsel. He has this point of honesty, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... laws of etiquette (or is it finance?) which so cramp the style of any writer who refers to advertisements forbid me to state what particular soup powder this was; but according to the hoardings, the way in which a pennyworth will nourish and rejoice the human frame is, as the Americans say, something fierce. If the applause of the company was a guide, this prizewinner is a very popular figure among our "National fillers." The second prize went ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... and appalling silence. Gradually, too, small sounds relieved this: the hammering of brass-work, the steady rattle of a loom, or the sing-song call and mellow bell of some burdened hawker, bumping past, his swinging baskets filled with a pennyworth of trifles. But still the silence daunted Rudolph in this astounding vision, this masque of unreal life, of lost daylight, of annihilated direction, of placid turmoil and multifarious identity, made credible only by ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... these may eat?" The purpose of the question was to test the apostle's faith; for the Lord had already determined as to what was to be done. Philip's reply showed surprize at the question, and conveyed his thought that the suggested undertaking was impossible. "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little," said he. Andrew added that there was a lad present who had five barley loaves, and two small fishes, "But," said he, "what are ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... indescribable feeling of loneliness, exhausted with the toilsome and sleepless night, and with the cravings of hunger, he sauntered up into the town. Coming across a baker's shop, he stepped in, and called for three pennyworth of bread. In Philadelphia, food was abundant and bread was cheap. To his surprise three long rolls were given to him. He took one under each arm, and in his hunger the homeless boy walked along devouring the other. Philadelphia was then ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... been thoughtfully weighing the relative merits of an immediate allowance of sausages and mashed potatoes for fivepence, or a couple of stale buns for one penny, to be followed at nightfall by a real banquet—seven-pennyworth of honest beef and vegetables. Now, with a trifle over four shillings in my pocket, I was, to outward seeming, carelessly scanning a menu, in which no single dish, not even the soup, seemed to cost less than about three times the price of one of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... two ounces, or four ounces in weight, and was priced in plain figures at so much in English money. The trader had continual trouble with those packages. His customers were always wanting them to be split up. They wanted two or three sen worth—not four pennyworth; also they did not care about ounces. So the trader, starting for a visit to England, had some labels written in Japanese characters, and when he arrived in England he went to the manufacturers and explained matters. He showed them the labels that he ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... I am sure David Promoter has not a pennyworth of personal pride in him He is studying hard, ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... the day; and as this was the time the lodgers were now crowding in, every one carrying the eatables he intended to use, which usually consist of half a pound of bacon, quarter of a pound of butter, a pennyworth of tea or coffee, with as much sugar. These are placed upon a half-quartern loaf, and carried in one hand; and, if eggs are in season, three or four may be seen clutched in ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown

... they would have found the hoard. Now thither must this poor old miser go, whether in starlight, moonshine, or pitch darkness, and brood above his worthless treasure, recalling all the petty crimes by which he gained it. Not a coin must he fail to reckon in his memory, nor forget a pennyworth of the sin that made up the sum, though his agony is such as if the pieces of gold, red-hot, were stamped into his naked soul. Often, while he is in torment there, he hears the steps of living men, who love the dross of earth as well as he did. May they never groan over their miserable wealth ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Zealand,[7] that kind of effective authority which Parliament exercises in the United Kingdom. The Cabinet of New Zealand is not appointed at Westminster; the action of a New Zealand Ministry as regards the affairs of New Zealand is not controlled by the English Government. Not a pennyworth of taxation is imposed on the inhabitants of New Zealand, or of any colony whatever, by the Imperial Parliament. Even the imposition of customs, though it has an important bearing on the interest of the ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... the edge of his field borders on the Horeszkos' castle; he is respected in the district, he has an office, he is a judge! And you will yield the castle to him? Shall his base feet wipe the blood of my lord from this floor? No! While Gerwazy has but a pennyworth of spirit, and enough strength to move even with one little finger his penknife, which still hangs on the wall, never shall a Soplica ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... shops, or to help Ephraim gather windfalls in the orchard, dig potatoes, or assist Anna in any way she was allowed to. And now that her parsley bed was really in full growth, in spite of its troubled beginning, she was very full of happy importance. To be asked if she could spare a pennyworth of parsley filled her with ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... found his first lift in life there; many a man got a sorely needed berth by simply dropping in for four pennyworth of birds'-eye at an auspicious moment. Even Willy's assistant, a redheaded, uninterested, delicate-looking young fellow, would hand you across the counter sometimes a bit of valuable intelligence with your box of cigarettes, ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... said, if we are going to make a great saving on meat, we can well afford a few trifles, so long as they are trifles. A sixpenny bottle of thyme will last for months; and if we give up our gravy beef, or piece of pickled pork, or two-pennyworth of bones, as the case may be, surely we can afford a little indulgence ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne

... character in the literature of our Scottish metropolis. I no longer stand in the outer shop of our bibliopolists, bargaining for the objects of my curiosity with an unrespective shop-lad, hustled among boys who come to buy Corderies and copy-books, and servant girls cheapening a pennyworth of paper, but am cordially welcomed by the bibliopolist himself, with, "Pray, walk into the back-shop, Captain. Boy, get a chair for Captain Clutterbuck. There is the newspaper, Captain—to-day's paper;" or, "Here is the last new work—there is ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... till their dealings have been betrayed. It is not long since one of this company was apprehended, who was before time reputed for a very honest and wealthy townsman; he uttered also more horses than any of his trade, because he sold a reasonable pennyworth and was a fairspoken man. It was his custom likewise to say, if any man hucked hard with him about the price of a gelding, "So God help me, gentlemen (or sir), either he did cost me so much, or else, by ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints while her mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latter's custom as soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's request for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six-pennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a little basket behind ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... perhaps, a good while after, confident that the sagacity of our audience will make all smooth. Sometimes a full style, like Macaulay's, may, by means of amplification and illustration, spread the elements of a single syllogism over several pages—a pennyworth of logic steeped in so much eloquence. These practices give a great advantage to sophists; who would find it very inconvenient to state explicitly in Mood and Figure the pretentious antilogies which they foist upon the ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... before) those vermin should sit there no more. Sing hi ho, Wil. Lenthall, (73) who shall our general be? For the House to the Devil is sent all, and follow, good faith, mun ye! Sing hi ho, my honey, my heart shall never rue, Here's all pickt ware for the money, and yet a hard pennyworth too. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... of the best houses in Wimpole Street. I was in it two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle's, and prefer it to almost any I know in London, and certainly she will then feel, to use a vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworth for her penny. Henry could not have afforded her such a house. I hope she will recollect it, and be satisfied, as well as she may, with moving the queen of a palace, though the king may appear best in the background; and as I have no desire to tease her, I shall never force ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... considering the distance we are from medical assistance, the great expensiveness of it far beyond our ability, and the number of wretched, afflicted objects whom we continually see and who continually apply for help, we ought never to sell a pennyworth. Brother Thomas has been the instrument of saving numbers of lives. His house is constantly surrounded with the afflicted; and the cures wrought by him would have gained any physician or surgeon in Europe the most extensive reputation. ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... 'glass-alley,' with which she avers that, at the age of ten or thereabouts, our future hero disported himself. It must have been by some premonition that the venerable lady cherished it, having received it originally, as she remembers, in barter for a pennyworth of saffron cake, a species of delicacy to which the youthful Solomon was ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... finished. You can vary the color by giving two or more coats if required. Then repolish your job altogether in the usual way. Should you wish to brighten up the old mahogany, use polish dyed with Bismarck brown as follows:—Get three pennyworth of Bismarck brown, and put it into a bottle with enough naphtha or methylated spirits to dissolve it. Pour a few drops of this into your polish, and you will find that it gives a nice rich red color to the work, but don't dye the polish ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... as knowing celebrities, shaking hands with the drunken P., [Translator's Note: Probably Palmin, a minor poet.] listening to the raptures of a stray spectator in a picture show, being renowned in the taverns.... If they do a pennyworth they do not strut about as though they had done a hundred roubles' worth, and do not brag of having the entry where others are not admitted.... The truly talented always keep in obscurity among the crowd, as far as possible from advertisement.... Even Krylov has said that an empty barrel echoes ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... must be some mistake, I guess," said he, as he gave back the gold piece. "No, and you can take up your packet too; I don't grudge two-pennyworth of salve. But wait a moment while I serve this small customer, for I want a word with you later. . . . Well, and what can I do for you, young gentleman?" he asked, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... the wonderful property bestowed upon his knapsack, and very soon he had spent and squandered his gold as before. When he had but fourpence left, he came to a public-house, and thought that the money must go. So he called for three pennyworth of wine and a pennyworth of bread. As he ate and drank, the flavour of roasting geese tickled his nose, and, peeping and prying about, he saw that the landlord had placed two geese in the oven. Then it occurred to him what his companion had told him about his knapsack, ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... people. We have seen instances in the reign of Mary. Elizabeth, before her coronation, issued an order to the custom-house, prohibiting the sale of all crimson silks which should be imported, till the court were first supplied.[*] She expected, no doubt, a good pennyworth from the merchants while they lay ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... minutes. After making quite sure that he wasn't a Major I reminded him that for that matter the War had been due to be over last September; also that I had used some of his trains before and that he couldn't teach me two-pennyworth about them I hadn't known from childhood. This I said courteously but firmly, and thereafter felt better and bought eight boiled eggs, a ham sandwich made so hastily that the ham came to be altogether omitted, three oranges, and a large mineral-water. The train ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various

... obtain milk easier than her far-away sister in those fabulous fields which the city woman has never seen, and, perhaps, never will. Often in arable districts there are scarcely any cows kept. No one cares to retail a pennyworth of milk. It is only by favour, through the interest taken by some farmer's wife, that it ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... Berry. "I know. I'll go as a mahout. Now, that's easy. Six feet of butter muslin, four pennyworth of woad, and a harpoon. And we can lock the elephant's switch and park ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... felt somewhat languid, having never I suppose had time for such feelings. No walking in America; taken down by stages to the boats however short the distance. Bought a pennyworth of cracked hickory nuts. A delightful breeze. Met on the steamer an English gentleman, his lady and child. Set off in a stage and left Buffalo at eleven A.M.; found it a pleasant drive mostly along the banks of the river. Arrived at Niagara soon after four P.M. Immediately ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... improvised on themes selected by the imperial arbiter. The victory was left undecided, though Mozart, who disliked the Italians, spoke afterward of Clementi, in a tone at variance with his usual gentleness, as "a mere mechanician, without a pennyworth of feeling or taste." Clementi was more generous, for he couldn't say too much of Mozart's "singing touch and exquisite taste," and dated from this meeting a considerable difference in his own ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls; and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... tacit censure of her fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacit sarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with the same success. On this lather hint she did indeed improve, for she daily raised some of her articles. A pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at a shilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishes for two shillings on the Saturday, we paid half-a-crown for the cookery of one on the Sunday; and, whenever she was paid, she ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... strong and mild tempered, without a pennyworth of malice in me. But she! oh! la! la! she looks like nothing; she is short and thin. Very well, she does more mischief than a weasel. I do not deny that she has some good qualities; she has some, and very important ones ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... was a region beyond those fluctuations. With new books there was always a pound's worth of risk to a pennyworth of profit; but there was no end of money to be got out of old ones, if only you knew how to set about it. And Isaac did not quite know how. In his front shop it was the Public, in his side shop it was the books that mattered, and knowledge of the one, however ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I had him give me three pennyworth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprized at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market street as far as Fourth street, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... nothing but the beard of an oyster. We trust that the "Comic Latin Grammar" will be found to cut, now and then, rather better, at least, than that comes to; and that it will reward the purchaser, at any rate, with his pennyworth for his penny, by its genuine bona fide contents. There are many works, the pages of which contain a good deal of useful matter— sometimes in the shape of an ounce of tea or a pound of butter: we venture to indulge the expectation, that ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh

... finding work there. Failing in that, he set out for Manchester and reached it at dusk, very weary and very miry in consequence of the road being in such a wretched state of mud and ruts. He relates that, not knowing a person in the town, he went up to an apple-stall ostensibly to buy a pennyworth of apples, but really to ask the stall-keeper if he knew of any person in want of a hand. Was there any turner in the neighbourhood? Yes, round the corner. Thither he went at once, found the wood-turner in, and was promised a job on the following morning. He remained with the turner for ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... ills will be cured. They are both on the wrong track. They might as well try to corner all the checkers or all the dominoes of the world under the delusion that they are thereby cornering great quantities of skill. Some of the most successful money-makers of our times have never added one pennyworth to the wealth of men. Does a card player add to the ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... purse which hung in front of his petticoat, he produced a short tobacco-pipe made of iron, and observed almost aloud, 'I hae forgotten my spleuchan—Lachlan, gang doon to the Clachan, and bring me up a pennyworth of twist.' Six arms, the nearest within reach, presented, with an obedient start, as many tobacco-pouches to the man of office. He made choice of one with a nod of acknowledgment, filled his pipe, lighted it with the assistance of his pistol-flint, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... is intended to be essentially generous, and is ended by an allusion to certain old clerical friends which has a sweet tone of tenderness in it. "How should he who knows you, not respect you or your calling? May this pen never write a pennyworth again if it ever casts ridicule upon either." But in the meantime he has thrown his stone at the covetousness of bishops, because of certain Irish prelates who died rich many years before he wrote. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... well so far as execution with the right hand is concerned; his forte is passages in thirds. Aside from this he hasn't a pennyworth of feeling or taste; in a word ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel

... in the world, it would be either that my wife had no arms, or that I had no back. She may use her mouth as much as she pleases. But I must stop at Jacob Shoemaker's on the way—he'll surely let me have a pennyworth of brandy on credit—for I must have something to quench my thirst. Hey, Jacob Shoemaker! Are you up yet? Open the ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg

... less a masterpiece. At the very moment that the halter was being put about his neck, he was asked by the Chaplain what he had to say before he died. 'Only,' says he, 'there's a woman yonder with some curds and whey, and I wish I could have a pennyworth of them before I am hanged, because I don't know when I shall see any again.' There is a brave irrelevance in this very human desire, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... like, serve yourself." 2. "For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost." 3. "A fat kitchen makes a lean will." 4. "What maintains one vice would bring up two children." 5. "Who dainties love shall beggars prove." 6. "At a great pennyworth pause awhile." 7. "Silks and satins, scarlets and velvets put out ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... gas-lit) was a shop which had pies and puddings in the window, puddings and pies kept hot by steam rising through perforated metal. How many a time have I stood there, raging with hunger, unable to purchase even one pennyworth of food! The shop and the street have long since vanished; does any man remember them so feelingly as I? But I think most of my haunts are still in existence: to tread again those pavements, to look at those grimy doorways and purblind windows, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... little to sit with the judge. It was understood that only people of a certain standing were included among the Bailie's customers, and the sight of the Countess of Kilspindie's carriage at his door marked out his province of business. Yet if a little lassie stumbled into the shop and asked for a pennyworth of peppermints, he would order her to be served, adding a peppermint or two more, and some good advice which sent away the little woman much impressed; for though the Bailie committed one big, blazing indiscretion, and suffered terribly in consequence ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... in him, and commanded the schooner Dash, owned by one Squire Burgle, who carried on a strictly legitimate trade with the Yankees over the line, though he always gave out that he hated them as a people, nor would ever sell a pennyworth of their notions which he denounced as worthless. Hornblower was a brusque old salt, but had a right good heart in him, and, not liking the way trade was restricted by imperial and colonial exactions, thought it no harm to work to ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... good-for-nothing, impudent, and happy dogs, never before fed upon a baronet's substance, contradicted him to his very face, and fought for him behind his back. The females in my establishment bear but a most niggardly proportion to the males—in the ratio of Falstaff, one pennyworth of bread to his many gallons of sack: and these few are the most hideous, pox-marked, blear-eyed damsels that the country could produce—all ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... Letter. I have no straw, not a pennyworth of chaff, only this may stop your kind importunity to know ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... prognostic for time to come. This wicked thing may be done by hoarding up (food) when the hunger and necessity of the poor calls for it. If things rise do thou be grieved. Be also moderate in all thy sellings, and be sure let the poor have a pennyworth, and sell thy corn to those who are in necessity; which thou wilt do when thou showest mercy to the poor in thy selling to him, and when thou undersellest the market for his sake because he is poor. This is to buy and sell with a good conscience. The buyer thou wrongest not, thy ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... surrendering all the ground to a reactionary party. The abolition of the stamp-tax has freed the daily press, and expensive newspapers no longer represent little cliques, but belong to the people of England, who take their pennyworth of honest criticism every morning; and the best of these newspapers have been for three years on the side of Northern republicanism. This is the instinct of human nature, which knows its rights and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... it's chocolate!" exclaimed one of the women, who had been already served with a cup, and had resolved to "go in," as she said, for another pennyworth. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... value of the whole amount is not, at any one moment of time, in the least augmented by it. The person who works the lace of a pair of fine ruffles for example, will sometimes raise the value of, perhaps, a pennyworth of flax to 30 sterling. But though, at first sight, he appears thereby to multiply the value of a part of the rude produce about seven thousand and two hundred times, he in reality adds nothing to the value of the whole annual amount of the rude produce. The ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... with a violent effort, finished severing the cheese. The thin-faced woman took it, and, coughing above it, went away. The girl, who could not take her eyes off Thyme, now served them with three pennyworth of bull's-eyes, which she took out with her fingers, for they had stuck. Putting them in a screw of newspaper, she handed them to Martin. The young man, who had been observing negligently, touched Thyme's elbow. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... down; After he says: "Pagan, accurst be thou! Thou'lt never say that Charles forsakes me now; Nor to thy wife, nor any dame thou'st found, Thou'lt never boast, in lands where thou wast crowned, One pennyworth from me thou'st taken out, Nor damage wrought on me nor any around." After, for aid, "Rollant!" he ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... commodity at a reasonable price: or if thou buyest, offer reasonable gain for the thing thou wouldest have: and if this will not do with the buyer or seller, then seek thee a more honest chapman: If thou objectest, But I have not skil to know when a pennyworth is before me: Get some that have more skill than thy self in that affair, and let them in that matter dispose of thy money. But if there were no Knaves in the world, these objections need not ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... in 1601 the sum of L.400 to the Leathersellers' Company, 'to be employed in lands, the best pennyworth they could get;' and that the house should have 40s. of it a year for ever. The remainder was to be bestowed upon poor scholars, students of divinity—two of Oxford, and two of Cambridge, for four years; and after them to two others of each university; and after them, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... second matter concerns myself—personally he was under no obligations to the lawyers—the services he received at the trial was done to him as a state prisoner, and not to Carboni Raffaello individually; when individually, he requested to be supplied with six pennyworth of snuff by Mr. Dunne, it was promised, but it never came to him. It would not have cost much to have supplied him, and it would have greatly obliged him, as habit had rendered snuff-taking necessary to him. With the permission of those present he would ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... cut to proof (luckily for us all round) either that "Monsieur Alphonse" develops itself on the highest plane of irony or that "Ghosts" simplifies almost to excruciation. If "John Gabriel Borkmann" is but a pennyworth of effect as to a character we can imagine much more amply presented, and if "Hedda Gabler" makes an appeal enfeebled by remarkable vagueness, there is by the nature of the case no catching the convinced, or call him the deluded, spectator ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... Church because some of the Pilgrim Fathers' fathers are buried in it; but I've never seen any Americans about. They never come to me; I have been here boy and man for sixty years, and never knew an American do a pennyworth of good to Cullerne Church; and they never did a pennyworth of good for Miss Joliffe, for none of them ever came to Bellevue Lodge, and the select boarding-house is so select that you and I are the only ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... filthy dens where whole suits of second and third-hand clothing are sold at prices that would ruin any proprietor who did not steal his stock; still other filthy dens where they sold groceries—sold them by the half-pennyworth—five dollars would buy the man out, goodwill and all. Up these little crooked streets they will murder a man for seven dollars and dump the body in the Seine. And up some other of these streets—most of them, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... supererogatory merit. Besides which, he had been, in a general way, a servant of servants in every quarter of the globe, and had been run out of every billet for utter incompetency; often having to content himself with a poor half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. So he enjoyed (or otherwise) opportunities of seeing things that the literary tourist never sees; and, being a good talker, and, withal, a singularly truthful man, he was excellent ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... into a new tin saucepan, a quarter of an ounce of benjamin, storax, and spermaceti, two pennyworth of alkanet root, a large juicy apple chopped, a bunch of black grapes bruised, a quarter of a pound of unsalted butter, and two ounces of bees wax. Simmer them together till all be dissolved, and strain it through a linen. When ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... I saw a tempting packet labelled "Cokernut Toffee." I bought a pennyworth and gave it to ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... injunctions never to change it. After they had been closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks upon their returning that they had been promised something great. "Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a pennyworth?" "I protest, papa," says the girl, "I believe she deals with somebody that is not right, for she positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less than a twelvemonth!" "Well now, Sophy, my child," said I, "and what sort of a husband are you to have?" ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... nearly all the way to school, while Lucy insisted on sliding along all the gutters and dragging Harry after her. She bought a catapult at the toy-shop and a pennyworth of tintacks at the oil-shop, both on credit, and as Lucy had never asked for ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... leisured class, the philosophers' rendezvous. Your speciale (apothecary) is himself an elderly and honoured man, full of responsibility and local knowledge; he is altogether a superior person, having been trained in a University. You enter the shop, therefore, and purchase a pennyworth of vaseline. This act entitles you to all the privileges of the club. Then is the moment to take a seat, smiling affably at the assembled company, but without proffering a syllable. If this etiquette is strictly ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... or woman with a pennyworth of brains, or the like precious amount of personal experience, or who has read a novel before, must, when Harry pulled out those faded vegetables just now, have gone off into a digression of his own, as the writer confesses for himself he was diverging whilst he has ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... pretty. There still lingered about her eyes some remains of that look of perfect innocency and pure faith which had been hers not more than twelve months since. And now, at midnight, in the middle of the streets, she was praying for a pennyworth of gin, as the only comfort she ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... captives, as they came to the camp, was two great leagues in length, and they reached the camp that night. Then was the Emperor Henry greatly rejoiced, and all the other barons; and they had the captives lodged apart, and well guarded, with their goods, so that they lost not one pennyworth of what they possessed. On the morrow the Emperor Henry rested for the sake of the people he had delivered. And on the day after he left that country, and rode day by day ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin

... little talk in French, and then the old man got his can filled with porter—the evening drink for a party of reapers who were working on the hill—bought a pennyworth of sweets, and ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge

... all a bad sort of place, my dear,' he said quite cheerfully. 'At the back, in the yard, there's a tree and a strip of grass. In spring, if you like, you might put in a pennyworth of seeds, and have ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... that, if the shopman had a pennyworth of any kind of seed, he would purchase it as a small reparation for his intrusion on the time of so ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... indeed, conceiving this to be the prime duty of a great landlord, but his interest in them was really proprietary. It was of his bounty, and of his complete knowledge of what his duties as "one of us" were, that he did so, and any legislation which compelled him to part with one pennyworth of his property for the sake of others less fortunate he resisted to the best of his ability as a theft of what was his. The country, in fact, if it went to the dogs (and certain recent legislation distinctly seemed to point kennelwards), would go to the dogs because ignorant politicians, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... want not," said Ben to himself. Contrary to his cousin's surmise, he happened to have two pennyworth of half-pence actually ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... closetted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great.—'Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a pennyworth?'—'I protest, pappa,' says the girl, 'I believe she deals with some body that's not right; for she positively declared, that I am to be married to a 'Squire in less than a twelvemonth!'—'Well now, Sophy, my child,' said I, 'and what sort of a husband ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... obstructed, may become accessible. Wife, I think I have done the trick at last. Lysimachus!" added he, "let a libation be poured out on so smiling an occasion, and a burnt-offering rise to propitiate the celestial powers. Run to the 'Sun,' you dog. Three pennyworth of ale, and a ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade



Words linked to "Pennyworth" :   penn'orth, worth



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