vonce

English

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Yiddish וואַנץ (vants, “bedbug”), by analogy to the English slang term roach. Attested since the 1950s.

Noun

vonce (countable and uncountable, plural vonces)

1. (US, slang) Marijuana; cannabis, especially used as a drug.
2. (Yiddish) Something or someone small and annoying.
   • 2006 January 10, Andy Gee, “Two events having to do with China”, in rec.bicycles.misc‎^[1] (Usenet):

     Last week, I was coming home in the secluded dark of the just-post-solstice Hudson River Greenway. I vaguely make out a... well, a vonce would be the correct term. A little annoying thing in my mirror.

   • 2005, Jack Henry Markowitz, The Practice and Other Stories and Selected Poems, →ISBN, page 49:

     “Promise you'll come and visit your tanteh soon or I won't let you go, my little vonce!” said his aunt, tightening her hold.

Synonyms

• (marijuana): Thesaurus:marijuana
• (something small and annoying): Thesaurus:nuisance

Etymology 2

Uncertain; possibly from German Schwanz (“tail, slang for penis”) or Yiddish שוואַנץ (shvants, “penis”).

Noun

vonce

1. (slang) Sexual activity.
   • 2001, Louis Armstrong, Thomas David Brothers, Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings, →ISBN:

     Like we first met' and Checking in a lot of Hotels with those Twin Beds, my my how Lucille + I suffered every time that we did the Vonce (sex) you know?

   • 2001, Aine A. Thang, Ms. Thang's Guide to Fly, →ISBN, page 23:

     When you ain't sharin' sex with the one you love, you jest havin' sex, or, like the young folk say, you doin' the nasty. Doin' the vonce, what they called it back in my day.

   • 2011, Clark Terry, Gwen Terry, Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry, →ISBN, page 72:

     ... Soldiers, but whatever it stood for, it was a place where we could drink our rum, smoke our cigarettes, and “do the vonce”—a nickname for making love.

2. (slang, jazz) A state in which the musician produces great improvisation intuitively.
   • 1999, Jazz Times - Volume 29, Issues 6-10, page 38:

     Re-hearing the Curtis Mayfield-avant soul of "Judgment", the proto-acid jazz groove vonce of "Tune Up", the neo-soul slow drag prophecy of "Rosemary Blue" (penned by Neil Sedaka!) 25 years later, I know now that I totally slept on a most seminal pop vocal album.

   • 2009, George Wein, Nate Chinen, Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, →ISBN, page 92:

     "Man, when I was with Basie," he'd say, "we'd come up on the vonce, and the man would put the ding-ding here."

   • 2009, Skoot Larson, The Dig You Later, Alligator Blues: A Lars Lindstrom Zen-Jazz Mystery, →ISBN:

     Blowin' out here would be more like wailing into the heavenly vonce, rather then huffing and puffing changes in a dark cellar.

   • 2012, The Complete Prestige Recordings of Dexter Gordon (liner notes):

     Feeling his vonce before the soulfully enspirited Baltimore congregation, Gordon counts off the tempo for “Blues Up and Down,” the ritualistic set-closer, “roaring out the blocks hotter than a bowl of three-alarm chili, expatiating inventive verse after verse until the total rings up to an astounding 40,” in the words of Hollis.

Etymology 3

Uncertain; Possibly either of the etymologies listed above. Attested since the 1960s.

Noun

vonce (plural vonces)

1. (US, slang, term of abuse) A jerk; an unpleasant person.
   • 1963, Irvin Faust, Entering Angel's world: a student-centered casebook, page 57:

     That "Legs," I hate it and the little vonce knows it, so of course he's hittin me where I live, my lousy bowlegs.

   • 2001, David Mamet, Heist, Burbank, CA: Warner Bros, →ISBN:

     Is that strict, you fucking vonce? Sorry to use such language in front of a woman

   • 2011, Linda Fairstein, Death Dance, →ISBN:

     That little vonce – that cockroach – shouldn't be anywhere near my place.

Etymology 4

See once.

Adverb

vonce (not comparable)

1. Pronunciation spelling of once, imitative of German-accented or non-native English.
   • 1843, William Evans Burton, The Yankee Among the Mermaids, and Other Waggeries and Vagaries‎^[2], Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, page 190:

     I vonce lov'd a maid, and vished much to tell her / I vanted to make her Mrs. Sam Veller

   • 1889, Henry Whitcomb Holley, Random Shots at Living Targets, page 57:

     Shoost tells me vonce, what kind of emigrashun talk you tinks it pe to say, coom now to dis country und vork, und vork, put pe so pig a fool ash to leave your appetite pehint ! Ish dat you tink for vat de revolooshun vas?

   • 1920, Dillon Wallace, The Ragged Inlet Guards, Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, →OCLC, page 50:

     The ship it must pe going vonce again now. You vill pe again careful that the bottom of the sea it does not come up to hit her und stick her fast vonce?

References

• Jonathon Green (2024) “vonce n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Anagrams

• coven