pennying

pennying is the present participle and gerund of penny.

Noun

pennying (countable and uncountable, plural pennyings)

(uncountable, Oxbridge slang) The activity of pennying in general, as part of a meal or drinking game, whereby dropping a penny in a person's drink means that they must finish it (or some such variation thereof); commonly associated with crewdates at Oxford and swaps at Cambridge.
- The game, in which participants must ‘save the queen' by downing their drink if a penny is dropped into it, is already banned in most dining halls. However, the revelation that permitting pennying is now a criminal offence may mean that even stricter policies will now be enforced.2010 October 28, Eleanor Dickinson, Andrew Georgiou, The Cambridge Student, archived from the original on 01 Aug 2016
(countable, uncommon, Oxbridge slang) An act of pennying, as part of a meal or drinking game.

penny (third-person singular simple present pennies, present participle pennying, simple past and past participle pennied)

(slang) To jam a door shut by inserting pennies between the doorframe and the door.
- Zach and Ben had only been at college for a week when their door was pennied by the girls down the hall.
To circumvent the tripping of an electrical circuit breaker by the dangerous practice of inserting a coin in place of a fuse in a fuse socket.
(Oxbridge slang) During a meal or as part of a drinking game, to drop a penny in a person's drink with the expectation that they finish it (or some such variation thereof); commonly associated with crewdates at Oxford and swaps at Cambridge.
- You got pennied! Down it, fresher.

plural	pennyings

What does pennying mean?: Pennying means the activity of pennying in general, as part of a meal or drinking game, whereby dropping a penny in a person's drink means that they must finish it (or some such variation thereof); commonly associated with crewdates at Oxford and swaps at Cambridge.
What is pennying the present participle and gerund of?: Pennying is the present participle and gerund of penny.
What part of speech is pennying?: Pennying is a noun.
What is the plural of pennying?: The plural of pennying is pennyings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: pennying (page history and authors); penny (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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