Nonce

Pronunciation

• enPR: nŏns, IPA: /nÉ’ns/
• UK IPA: nÉ’n(t)s
• US IPA: nÉ‘n(t)s
• Rhymes: -É’ns

From a misdivision in Middle English of þan anes ("the one (occasion, instance)").

Full definition of nonce

Noun

1. The one or single occasion; the present reason or purpose (now only in for the nonce).That will do for the nonce, but we'll need a better answer for the long term.
• 1857, , , chapter 6:'Idiot!' exclaimed the doctor, who for the nonce was not capable of more than such spasmodic attempts at utterance.
2. (lexicography) A nonce word.I had thought that the term was a nonce, but it seems as if it's been picked up by other authors.
3. (computing) A number, usually generated randomly or from the time, used once in a cryptographic protocol, to prevent replay attacks.

Adjective

1. denoting something occurring once.

Derived terms

• for the nonce
• nonce word
• nonce borrowing

Unknown – UK criminal slang. Possibly originally from dialectical nonce, nonse ("stupid, worthless individual"), or Nance, nance ("effeminate man"), from Nancy boy.

See Nonce (slang)#Etymology for further discussion.

Noun

1. (British, slang, pejorative) A sex offender, especially of children; a paedophile.That bloke who lives at number 53 is a nonce!
2. (British, slang) A stupid or worthless person.

Contraction of number used once

Noun

1. (cryptography) A datum constructed so as to be unique to a particular message in a stream, in order to prevent replay attacks.In this protocol we use the serial number of the message as a nonce.
2. (cryptography) In a security engineering context, a value used only once.
• 1999, Network Working Group, RFC 2617 – HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication, The Internet Society, page 22,The information gained by the eavesdropper would permit a replay attack, but only with a request for the same document, and even that may be limited by the server's choice of nonce.----