joker

Etymology

It is formed from English joke + -er.^[2][3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who jokes, a jester or merry fellow: 1729, in Thomas Cooke's Tales.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster dates it to about 1726,^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1720–30.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a jester; a merry fellow".^[7]

Semantic evolution

In slang joker came to mean simply a man or fellow by 1811,^[2][3][8] a use that became especially Australian and New Zealand.^[2][4] Etymonline thinks this general sense is probably the source of the name of the extra playing card, which it dates to 1868;^[3] the OED's first example of the card is from 1885.^[2] According to Etymonline, an 1894 newspaper claimed that the card began as a blank one that American makers added to the pack, but the historian of card games David Parlett showed that it was invented for euchre, a form of which used an extra card, so that the name may owe something to that of the game, itself from German Jucker.^[3] In the United States joker was used from 1904 for a clause slipped into a bill or a contract that changes its effect in a way not at first apparent.^[2] In American drug slang it meant a hypodermic syringe, or an injection of morphine (1925).^[8] In Oxfordshire dialect a joker was a tin can with a narrow neck in which farm workers took their tea or beer to the fields.^[9]

Timeline

• 1729 – one who jokes.^[2][3]
• 1811 – (slang) a man, a fellow.^[2][8]
• 1858 – something used to play a trick.^[2]
• 1868 – the extra playing card.^[3]
• 1885 – the playing card (OED).^[2]
• 1904 – a clause in a bill that changes its effect.^[2]
• 1925 – (US drug slang) a hypodermic syringe.^[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who tells jokes or plays tricks: Our uncle was the family joker.
2. (informal, often derogatory) A person, especially one regarded as foolish or incompetent: Which joker left the gate open?
3. An extra playing card, often showing a jester, which in many games can stand for any other card or ranks above the rest.
4. (chiefly US) A clause inserted in a bill or contract that makes it ineffective or changes its effect in a way not immediately apparent.

Related words

• joke
• jocular
• jest
• euchre

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)