Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US drugs) heroin, morphine or cocaine.

1914		Practical Druggist (US) 32:9 381/1: She is pictured by the so- called caricaturists [as] grabbing tor bargains as a cocaine sniffer grabs for the joy dust when once he has located a supply.
1937		Esquire 8:4-6 112: He was going to get off codeine and on to the real joy dust again.
1948		Earl Bostic [song title] Joy Dust.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 311: joy dust. Drugs, especially cocaine.

(US drugs) heroin, morphine or cocaine.

1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 311: joy flakes [...] Morphine, cocaine, or heroin.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 13: Joy flakes — Heroin.

(US drugs) heroin, morphine or cocaine.

1928		Pace That Kills [silent film script] A bunch of ‘SnowBirds’ with their ‘happy dust’ or ‘joy powder’.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 112: Joy Powder. – Morphine.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 311: joy powder. Morphine, cocaine, or heroin.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 805: joy powder – Morphine.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 13: Joy powder — Cocaine; heroin.

(US black) marijuana.

1944

D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 64: I was in the mood to jump since I’d been blowin’ the joy roots all the solid dim.

(drugs) marijuana.

1938		R.P. Walton Marihuana.
1940		‘Jargon of Marihuana Addicts’ in AS XV:3 Oct. 336/2: The drug, itself, is known as [...] joy smoke, kef, loco weed [...].
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 13: Joy smoke — Marijuana.

a narcotics user.

1919

Wash. Times (DC) 25 July 15/7: The ‘Joy Sniffers’ — An appealing chapter of the tragic career of Billy Carleton, a noted [...] drug addict.

1. (drugs) an opium pipe.

1936		D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 123/1: joy stick. An opium pipe.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

2. a marijuana cigarette.

1962		(con. 1950s) H. Simmons Man Walking On Eggshells 167: ‘Not quite, baby, not quite,’ he said, passing her the sweet-tasting joy stick.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1986		S. King It (1987) 668: He had actually traded six bottles of Budweiser and three joysticks for the sword in Honolulu.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 86: Wonderin if my good girl was maybe out behind the high-school woodshop in the afternoons, smokin joy-sticks.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 13: Joy stick — Marijuana cigarette.

3. see also SE compounds below.

1. (US) tobacco.

1918

Better Times Nov. (2006) 318/2: Stuff some of this Prince Ethelbert Joyweed into the chimney of your pleasurepipe.

2. (US drugs) marijuana.

1937

Marihuana: Weed with Roots in Hell [film script] n.p.: This bunch sure uses up the joy weed don’t they.

(drugs) an occasional injection of a narcotic by anyone who is not addicted.

1953

‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 69: Nick also scored for some respectable people [...] who indulged in an occasional ‘joy bang’.

1. the stomach.

1919

in A. Cornebise Amaroc News (1981) 15 July 27: Won’t it be fine though! with good things to eat, such as fried chicken and cream gravy, country sausage, good old southern biscuits smothered with country butter, coffee [...] all this transmitted to my brain and body, will cram my joy-box to overflowing and fill me full o’ pep.

2. (US black) a radio or a piano [ext. box n.¹ (4)].

1942		Pitsburgh Courier (PA) 22 Aug. 7/7: Joy box — radio.
1947		M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl.
1961		R.A. Norton Through Beatnik Eyeballs 50: Another guy belting his joy-box in plenty rhythm.

3. (US) the vagina [box n.¹ (1)].

1974

N. Heard Cold Fire 113: The sculpture of those two delicately molded mounds that framed the whole of her joy-box simply surrounded the essence of me.

1. (US) a foolish joker, or (ironically) a bad-tempered person.

1925		H. Leverage ‘Dict. Und.’ in Flynn’s mag. cited in Partridge DU (1949).
1948		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 21 Feb. 12: That [...] cafe owner didn’t sell out to his lawyer as the joy-boys had it.
1954		(con. 1943) C. Chessman Cell 2455 244: Look, Joy Boy [...] I’m in no condition for this sort of thing.
1960		(con. 1940s) D. MacCuish Do Not Go Gentle (1962) 121: Hop to it, Buzz [...] the joy boys’ll be back in a jiff.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 146: Joyboy A person who always fools around.

2. a male homosexual.

1960		C. Cooper Jr Syndicate (1998) 3: All the joy boys clustered around him protectively.
1972		R.A. Wilson Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 145: Special terms not much known outside male prostitute circles include […] joy boy.

3. a homosexual prostitute.

1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 25: joy boy (n.): A hustler (q.v.).
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

4. (drugs) a drug addict.

1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 190/1: Joyboy. A dope addict.
1998–2003		Fitomaro ‘Board to reveal the facts and truths’ Archive 9 Oct. Komulo Families 🌐 So you know ‘mickey mouse habit’? hehehe it means ‘junckie’ [sic] or ‘joy boy’ (sort of mild addiction). Oh! The next time to go Tokyo DisneyLand, I ask Mickymouse what his habit is.

(US) the clitoris.

1972		A.K. Shulman Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen 46: There was no joy button in the hygiene book.
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 131: Boy in the boat (clitoris, button, dot, joy buzzer, cockpit).
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 223: I reached around and found her joy buzzer.
2004		‘Tales of the SS Fountain of Youth’ at Literotica 🌐 He had her clit between his teeth, sucking and licking her joy button.

(N.Z.) a pessimist, a complainer.

1960

R.M. Muir Word for Word 236: All right joy-germ. What have you got to grizzle about?

(US) a prostitute.

[1866		]Sportsman 2 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [H]undreds of infected filles de joie are allowed to walk about and, spreading disease, poison the very life-blood of generations yet unborn.
[1868		H.L. Williams Black-Eyed Beauty 7: From Canal-street up to Waverley Place, the easy pieces, the girls of joy, were ‘kinder thick’].
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 81: He had fallen in love with one of the ‘fair but frail joy-girls’ of the West End.
1931		P. Stevenson Gospel According to St Luke’s 318: Dirdy little mick! Never home. Keeps joy-girls – ’partment in town.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 135: joy ladies Prostitutes.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 84: I knew a good deal about Idle Valley, and I knew it had changed a great deal from the days when they had [...] the fifty dollar joy girls.
1960		(con. c.1928) D. Holman-Hunt My Grandmothers and I (1987) 166: The ladies looked like actresses to me but Papa had said in the taxi: ‘They’re joy-girls really’.
1973		R. Todasco Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Dirty Words.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 66: At night she was a joy-woman and got gang-banged in the bunker by horny teenaged killers.

(US) the vagina.

c.1939		in Barkley Sex Cartoons 109: Take it easy big boy. After all I want to use this joy hole again some time [HDAS].
a.1990		P. Dickson Slang! 197: Joy hole. Female genitalia.

(US) a brothel.

[1880		Daily Globe (St Paul, Minn.) 28 Dec. 4/1: A gullible youth [...] had been bilked out of $30 by a star boarder at Mrs Watson’s maison de joi on Third Street].
1906		Reader 7 514: The German watchman came in and cried, ‘What d’ye t’ink t’is is, a joy-house?’ Cat calls, shouts, yelps greeted the inquiry.
1916		H.N. Cary Sl. of Venery.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 452: Joy house, A brothel.
c.1930		(ref. to 1898) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 262: When you say you ran a joy shop in San Francisco, people usually think ‘Barbary Coast’.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 112: Joy house. – A brothel.
1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 21: I ain’t been in a joy house in twenty years.
1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 201: There are shabby bars [...] and ‘joy clubs’ where ‘caps’ that sell in Harlem for fifty cents cost ten dollars.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 805: joy house – A brothel.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1974		E.H. Hunt Undercover 75: [W]e were the unsuspecting neighbors of a joy house.

(US) fruit-flavoured vaginal lubricant jelly.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1985		E. Bogosian Talk Radio (1989) 31: These three bimbos baste this guy with joy jell.

1. (US) a saloon bar.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 222: If you walk into a Portland joy-joint just to get out of the wet [...] you’re dead liable to get vagged.
1927		C.M. Russell Trails Plowed Under 147: We leave this joy parlor arm-in-arm and visit a friend of mine who owns a livery stable.
1966		R. Anderson Sand Pebbles [film script] I’m sure you all got your own joy joints to go to.

2. (Aus.) a brothel.

1914

Truth (Melbourne) 17 Jan. 7/1: [headline] Happenings at a Joy Joint. [...] Was he Fleeced by a Fitzroy Flossie?

1. (US) liquor, alcohol; also attrib.

1901		Florida Star (Titusville, FL) 22 Nov. 8/2: Joe Wilkins [...] fell from grace [...] having imbibed the joyful juice too freely.
1907		Wash. Post 1 Dec. 3/8: There has been so much written of Jim Jefferies bibulous tendencies that we shall be disappointed if we do not now find him wallowing in the gutter. There can’t be so much stagger without a little joy juice.
1909		N.Z. Truth 30 Jan. 5/6: [headline] Jehu and the Joy Juice.
1913		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 51: Up to the rail he waddled and asked for some joy juice.
1920		Alliance Herald (Box Butte Cty, NE) 13 Feb. n.p.: The fateful first of July when joy juice ceased to be an article of merchandise.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: joy-juice. Rum, whisky etc. chiefly rum.
1938		W. Winchell On Broadway 12 Aug. [synd. col.] Billy Rose tried to get $1 admission and had to stop – or lose the joy-juice privilege.
1946		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 20 July 17: She annoyed him by tossing a glass of joy juice in his face.
1958		Mad mag. Mar.–Apr. 30: An’ onna table dere wuz deze t’ree shot-glass full o’ joy-juice.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 444: I took a little sip of joy juice.
1970		‘Troy Conway’ Cunning Linguist (1973) 100: Amazing what a little Russian joy-juice can do.
1972		D. Claerbaut Black Jargon in White America 70: joy juice n. 1. wine. [...] 2. whiskey.
1984		I. Doig Eng. Creek 297: I would buy time by faking a little swig of Stanley’s joy juice.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 234: Old Ma whispers to me, ‘He sure knows how to lap up the joy juice.’.
2003		M. Masters Godschild Covenant: Return of Nibiru 235: And how do you drink this ‘joy juice,’ as you call it?

2. (US) rubbing alcohol.

1953

L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 244: I’ll be around to put some joyjuice on them [i.e. injured feet].

3. (US black/campus) beer.

1975

G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 62: joy juice n Beer.

4. (US drugs) liquid amyl nitrite.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

5. (US drugs) chloral hydrate.

1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 133: joy juice chloral hydrate, appetizers, tonics.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1981		D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 338: joyjuice: Chloral hydrate.

6. (US drugs) a depressant.

2001

ONDCP Street Terms 13: Joy juice — Depressants.

7. the drugs used in an execution by lethal injection.

2007

C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 7: [They] want to stick a needle in your arm filled with sodium chloride. The scientific term is ‘joy juice’.

1. (US) a knob screwed to a vehicle’s steering wheel, to facilitate steering with one hand.

1974

(con. 1940s) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 234: Glenn took his right hand from the wheel and put it around her shoulders, steering with the death’s-head joy knob.

2. (US) the penis.

1966

Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.

see joy girl

see separate entries.

the penis.

1934		‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana II 66: A mighty ten inch joy prong outlined on the wall, as stiff as the mustache on a Tasmanian wombat.
c.1935		‘Mae West in “The Hip Flipper”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 94: She again went to work to revive the shrunken joy-prong.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1951		(con. c.1910) in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 703: Little boys they used to put / Their joy-prongs up her snatch.
1970		in P.R. Runkel Law Unto Themselves 26: How lucky she’s been all these years having divvies on such a big joy prong.

(US) sexual intercourse.

1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1959		E. De Roo Go, Man, Go! 45: She said it was almost as good as the joy-ride in back.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.

1. (US) a legless beggar who transports themselves on a wheeled platform.

1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 452: Joy rider, A legless beggar.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 112: Joy Rider. – A legless beggar riding about the streets on a low, wheeled platform.

2. (US drugs) an occasional narcotic drug user.

1932		V.F. Nelson Prison Days and Nights 178: The average criminal is far more likely to become merely a ‘joy-rider’ (a man who takes a ‘shot’ or two to tide him over dreary weekends in the cell).
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 579: The drug peddlers who began to flourish after the passage of the Harrison Act in 1915 were ready with neologisms to reinforce the terminology of drug addiction [...] A mixture of cocaine and morphine was called a whizz-bang, an occasional user of drugs was a joy-rider, and to simulate illness in the hope of getting drugs was to throw a wing-ding.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 111/2: Joy-rider. 1. An occasional user of habit-forming narcotics. ‘Yeah, this joy-rider screwed (fooled) around with the whizz-bang (narcotics) until he got hooked right (became a hopeless addict).’.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).

see joy house

(drugs) an occasional injection of a narcotic by anyone who is not addicted.

1922

E. Murphy Black Candle 128: They take their first ‘jab’ or ‘sniff,’ which the gentry have given the camouflaged title of ‘joy shot’. [Ibid.] 247: She had been taking ‘joy shots’ for several years.

1. (orig. US, also gear stick) the penis.

1916		H.N. Cary Sl. of Venery.
c.1929		Adventures of Grace and Anna 87: She seized hold of his joystick.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 20: It was just a case of how soon you flashed the old joy-stick.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 448: ‘You’re the stickman joystick daddy,’ she told him.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1974		J. Lahr Hot to Trot 57: As for the duragrip zippers – known as ‘tiger teeth’ – they were murder on the old joystick when humping.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 191: Puns occur with the terms joy-stick and dipstick — I overheard in a cinema once the cry ‘Keep your lipstick off my dipstick!’.
1988		J. McDonald Dict. of Obscenity etc. 139: Gear stick and joy stick are another two recent metaphors for ‘penis’.
1992		N. Cohn Heart of the World 236: These [...] cocks [...] looked just ludicrous. These dicks, pricks, joysticks.
2002		(con. 1980s) i80s.com 🌐 joystick Used in place of dick.

2. see also sl. compounds above.

the vagina.

1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 34: You ought to check your brother the monsignor out on that one. What it means in canon law, a votive candle up the joy trail.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2001		D. Riel Backup 81: That old goat stuck an ear of corn up my joy trail. He said it was an annual ritual to the corn and that he was the corn king.

1. (US) alcohol.

1903		Daily Pioneer (Beltrami Cty, MN) 12 Nov. 4/3: [headline] Too Much Joy Water Made the Trouble.
1909		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 51: Dear Bunk Come up to 63 Chop St tonight one flight up — Big time Lots of skirts and joy water. Yours Silk Hat Harry.
1914		E. O’Neill The Movie Man in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 200: Are you soused, too? Where have you hidden the joy-water?
1919		Dly Ardmoreite (OK) 26 Dec. 8/2: The well spring of all this jag producing joy water is what the police are trying to locate.
1929		‘Wet Words in Kansas’ AS IV:5 386: Such terms as [...] joy water [...] are evidently references to the potency or the effect of the liquor designated.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 26 Mar. 11/1: We can supply [the makers of Calvert Whiskey] more top colored drummers than they’ve got joy water.
c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Belting the Grape; Elbow calishthenics or imbibing joy-water.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Coffin for a Coward’ in Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 The very things Janet Moore had called him in Plyman’s when she christened him with a jigger of joy-water.

2. (Aus.) champagne.

1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 30: joy water — Champagne.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: joy water. Champagne.

(US drugs) a marijuana cigarette.

1962

Standard-Speaker (Hazleton, PA) 3 Apr. 11/3: He could have asked for a joy weed, a merry wonder, or a reefer, and it would have meant the same — a marijuana cigaret.

see joy girl