twopenny-halfpenny

alternative two-penny-half-penny · alternative twopenny-ha'penny · alternative tuppenny-ha'penny

1. datedinformalnot comparablePetty, insignificant.

   Good heavens! and I was going to take charge of a two-penny-half-penny river-steamboat with a penny whistle attached!

   1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I

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   Poor devil, he's gone to the dogs altogether. He's got some twopenny-halfpenny job in the medical at Alexandria—sanitary officer or something like that. I'm told he lives with an ugly old Greek woman and has half a dozen scrofulous kids.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter L, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, page 264