john

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /dʒɒn/, US /dʒɑːn/^[1]

Etymology

It comes from the man's name John,^[2][3][4] which is inherited from Middle English Jon (also Johan),^[5][4] borrowed from Old French Jehan,^[2][5] from Late Latin Iōannēs, Medieval Latin Iōhannēs,^[5][6] from Ancient Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs),^[7][4] from a Hebrew name, “Yôḥānān”, explained as “God has been gracious”.^[2][8] The h in the English spelling copies the Medieval Latin form.^[5] Because the name was so common, it came to be used for any man, and in turn for the lavatory, a prostitute's client and other things.^[5][9] Etymonline thinks the sense “toilet” probably came by way of the older jakes.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A lavatory: the OED's first example is from 1735,^[10] but Etymonline dates the word to 1932.^[5] As a generic name for a man, especially a servant, John is late Middle English,^[8] and in Middle English it was used especially of priests.^[5]

Semantic evolution

By the early 14th century John rivalled William as the commonest English name, and it was used as a generic name, as in John Bull,^[5] the Englishman in John Arbuthnot's satire of 1712.^[6][7] John Chinaman is recorded from 1818.^[5][10] A policeman was a John Darm in 1823, a jocular rendering of French gendarme,^[5] which Green finds in 1830;^[11] john for a policeman is from 1898, chiefly in Australia,^[12] or by 1901.^[5] In American underworld slang a john was an easy victim from 1908,^[11] and the client of a prostitute from 1906,^[9] or about 1911.^[10][5] New Partridge derives this sense from the generic man by way of the criminal “dupe”.^[9] British rhyming slang made john, from John Bull, mean “pull”, an arrest, by 1962.^[11]

Timeline

• late Middle English – John, a generic man or servant.^[8]
• 1712 – John Bull (Arbuthnot).^[6]
• 1735 – a lavatory.^[10]
• 1818 – John Chinaman.^[5][10]
• 1823 – John Darm, a gendarme.^[5]
• 1898 – a policeman.^[12]
• 1906 – a prostitute's client.^[9]
• 1908 – a victim, a sucker.^[11]
• 1932 – a toilet, according to Etymonline.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. (slang, chiefly US) A toilet or lavatory.
2. (slang) A man who is a prostitute's customer.
3. (slang, chiefly Australian) A police officer.

Word family

• johnny house
• long johns

Related words

• John
• jakes
• johnny
• Jack
• gendarme
• John Bull

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
10. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
12. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)