Word.ws English Dictionary

penny gaffe

penny gaffe is the alternative form of penny gaff.

Meaning of penny gaff

Noun

penny gaff (plural penny gaffs)

  1. (historical) An entertainment in 19th-century England consisting of short theatrical displays such as dancing, singing, clowning, and plays.
    • My dear sirs, did you actually imagine that one could not follow every clumsy move you made, with Joolby's low comedy tramp and the other two stealing in like a couple of hired assassins in a penny gaff melodrama?1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London
    Synonyms:
    dukey

Forms of penny gaffe

pluralpenny gaffes

Questions about penny gaffe

What is penny gaffe the alternative form of?
Penny gaffe is the alternative form of penny gaff.

Words near penny gaffe in the dictionary

  1. penny farthing
  2. penny farthings
  3. penny for them
  4. penny for your thoughts
  5. penny gaff
  6. penny gaffe
  7. penny gaffes
  8. penny gaffs
  9. penny grass
  10. penny in the fusebox
  11. penny loafer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penny gaffe (page history and authors); penny gaff (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “penny gaffe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/penny_gaffe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.