Word.ws English Dictionary

spends a penny

spends a penny is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 spends a penny

What is spends a penny the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Spends a penny is the third-person singular simple present indicative of spend a penny.

Words near spends a penny in the dictionary

  1. Spendloves
  2. spendocracy
  3. spendocrat
  4. spendocrats
  5. spends
  6. spends a penny
  7. spends good money after bad
  8. spends money like water
  9. spends time
  10. spendthrift
  11. spendthrift clause

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spends 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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