Word.ws English Dictionary

two bob

two bob noun: two shillings; a florin.

Noun

two bob (uncountable)

  1. (Australia, UK, obsolete) Two shillings; a florin.
  2. (Australia, slang) A 20-cent coin.
  3. (Australia, UK, attributive, idiomatic, often) A trivially small value.
    • Less flashy in its post-modernism than the MI6 building, more sober in its brick-framed glass curtain walling, Sally Malone would have pointed out that this was the two-bob side of the block, as against the half-crown riverbank site of the other building.1999, Barry Maitland, The Chalon Heads: A Kathy and Brock Mystery, page 181
    • Judging from the spectrum and the brightness Dr Stickland “wouldn′t give two bob either way”.1975 September 4, “Monitor: Nova Honda brightens the night sky”, in New Scientist, page 515

Forms of two bob

alternative formtwo-bob

Words formed from two bob

  • bent as a two bob note
  • get one's two bob's worth
  • give two bob each way
  • have one's two bob's worth
  • silly as a two bob watch

Questions about two bob

What does two bob mean?
Two bob means two shillings; a florin.
What part of speech is two bob?
Two bob is a noun.

Words near two bob in the dictionary

  1. two birds with one stone
  2. two birds, one stone
  3. two birds/one stone
  4. two birds—one stone
  5. two bits
  6. two bob
  7. two bob each way
  8. Two Borders
  9. two brain cells to rub together
  10. two by four
  11. two by fours

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: two bob (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-two bob.ogg.

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