truepenny

plural truepennies · alternative true-penny

1. capitalizedobsoletesometimesAn honest, reliable fellow.

   "Hear me, Father Almighty. . . . Are you there, old Truepenny?"

   1916, Sherwood Anderson, chapter 3, in Windy McPherson's Son

   3 more examples

   Hamlet: . . . Give me one poor request. Horatio: What is't, my lord? we will. Hamlet: Never make known what you have seen to-night. . . .Indeed, upon my sword, indeed. Ghost: [Beneath] Swear. Hamlet: Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, truepenny? Come on—you hear this fellow in the cellarage— Consent to swear.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]

   "Ha!" said Christie, "art thou there, old True-penny? here, stable me these steeds, and see them well bedded, and stretch thine old limbs by rubbing them down; and see thou quit not the stable till there is not a turned hair on either of them."

   1820 March, [Walter Scott], chapter II, in The Monastery. A Romance. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 37

   "Duncan! you are, what I call, a clear-minded man. Well worth thinking of, old Truepenny!"

   1870, Wilkie Collins, chapter 25, in Man and Wife