Word.ws English Dictionary

spent a penny

spent a penny is the past participle 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 spent a penny

What is spent a penny the past participle of?
Spent a penny is the past participle of spend a penny.

Words near spent a penny in the dictionary

  1. Spenserisms
  2. spenses
  3. spensive
  4. Spensonian
  5. spent
  6. spent a penny
  7. spent force
  8. spent forces
  9. spent good money after bad
  10. spent money like water
  11. spent time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spent 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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