Word.ws English Dictionary

spending a penny

spending a penny is the present participle and gerund of spend a penny.

Meaning of spend a penny

Verb

spend a penny (third-person singular simple present spends a penny, present participle spending a penny, simple past and past participle spent a penny)

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, dated, euphemistic) To use the toilet.
    • I put on a lick of paint, slip over and spend a penny in Costing…I should technically use the one in Records but I've told them, that lavatory seat is a death trap.1982, Alan Bennett, “A Woman of No Importance”, in The Complete Talking Heads, Picador, published 2010, →ISBN, page 14

Questions about spending a penny

What is spending a penny the present participle and gerund of?
Spending a penny is the present participle and gerund of spend a penny.

Words near spending a penny in the dictionary

  1. spendicitis
  2. spendier
  3. spendiest
  4. spendin'
  5. spending
  6. spending a penny
  7. spending good money after bad
  8. spending money
  9. spending money like water
  10. spending power
  11. spending spree

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spending a penny (page history and authors); spend a 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.

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