Word.ws English Dictionary

turn an honest penny

turn an honest penny verb: to earn money by honest methods.

Verb

turn an honest penny (third-person singular simple present turns an honest penny, present participle turning an honest penny, simple past and past participle turned an honest penny)

  1. To earn money by honest methods.
    • My client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[15]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

Forms of turn an honest penny

third-person singular presentturns an honest penny
present participleturning an honest penny
past participleturned an honest penny
pastturned an honest penny

Questions about turn an honest penny

What does turn an honest penny mean?
Turn an honest penny means to earn money by honest methods.
What part of speech is turn an honest penny?
Turn an honest penny is a verb.
What is the past tense of turn an honest penny?
The past tense of turn an honest penny is turned an honest penny.

Words near turn an honest penny in the dictionary

  1. turn about
  2. turn about is fair play
  3. turn abouts
  4. turn again
  5. turn against
  6. turn an honest penny
  7. turn and turn about
  8. turn around
  9. turn around one's finger
  10. turn arounds
  11. turn aside

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turn an honest 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:

Cite this entry: “turn an honest penny.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turn_an_honest_penny. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.