[TEN a. + PENCE.] A sum of money equal to ten pennies; a foreign coin of about this value, a franc, a lira; sometimes used contemptuously, because the amount wants something of a shilling: cf. next.
c. 1592. Marlowe, Jew of Malta, IV. iv. Gentleman! he flouts me: What gentry can be in a poor Turk of tenpence?
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XIV. iii. As sure as ten-pence, this is the very young gentleman.
18[?]. Ruskin, in B’ham Inst. Mag., Dec. (1896), 71. I never pass a begging friar without giving him sixpence, or the equivalent fivepence of foreign coin, extending the charity even occasionally as far as tenpence, if no fivepenny bit chance to be in my purse.
1903. Farmer & Henley, Slang, s.v., Only tenpence in the shilling, a description of weak intellect.
