TO BRING A NOBLE TO NINEPENCE, verb. phr. (old).—To decline in fortune.—B. E. (c. 1696).
1725. N. BAILEY, trans. The Colloquies of Erasmus, I. 348. En. Have you given over study then! Po. Altogether; I have BROUGHT A NOBLE TO NINEPENCE, and of a master of seven arts I am become a workman of but one art.
See BEGGAR’S NOBLE.
