colloq. [f. TEN + -ER1.] A term applied to a number or amount of ten; spec. a. A ten-pound note; in U.S. a ten-dollar bill.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xix. ‘No money?’ ‘Not much; perhaps a tenner.’
1884. G. Allen, Philistia, III. 218. I had in my purse … five tenners—Bank of England ten-pound notes, you know.
1887. Black, Sabina Zembra, xxi. 208. You might make the fiver a tenner.
1893. Saltus, Madam Sapphira, xvi. At the rate of eight dollars a column and a tenner for the ‘beat.’
b. A period of ten years.
1866. Morn. Star, 19 Dec. I will tell the truth, or else I shall get a ‘tenner’ (ten years’ penal servitude).
1904. Daily News, 7 Nov., 9. [He] has been chief magistrate … for the past nine years uninterruptedly, and … the Corporation has just asked him to extend it and make a ‘tenner’ of it.
