Word.ws English Dictionary

penny in the fusebox

penny in the fusebox noun: an improvised repair made with no regard for safety.

Noun

penny in the fusebox

  1. (idiomatic) An improvised repair made with no regard for safety.
    • The fix I made was just a penny in the fusebox; we need to revisit it and fix the problem for real.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see penny, in, the, fusebox.

Origin of penny in the fusebox

By metaphorical extension from the literal sense, a makeshift to close a circuit when no replacement fuse is at hand.

Questions about penny in the fusebox

What does penny in the fusebox mean?
Penny in the fusebox means an improvised repair made with no regard for safety.
What part of speech is penny in the fusebox?
Penny in the fusebox is a noun.

Words near penny in the fusebox in the dictionary

  1. penny gaff
  2. penny gaffe
  3. penny gaffes
  4. penny gaffs
  5. penny grass
  6. penny in the fusebox
  7. penny loafer
  8. penny loafers
  9. penny mail
  10. penny packet
  11. penny packets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penny in the fusebox (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-penny in the fusebox.ogg.

Cite this entry: “penny in the fusebox.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/penny_in_the_fusebox. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.