joe n.1
1. generic uses of the proper name.
(a) (Scot.) a friend.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Hollander V i: You shall dance at my wedding, and be drunke too, my Joe, you shall. | |
| Cheats II iv: As merry as thou wilt, my joe. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Tea-table Misc. (1733) IV 452: Jo, sweet-heart. | |
| Poem on Pastoral Poetry in Works (1842) 110/1: And och! o’ er aft thy joes hae starv’ d Mid a’ thy favours! | |
| Wool-Gatherer 124: She’s a hinny and joe. | |
 | ‘Humours of Glasgow Fair’ [broadsheet ballad] Now Willock and Tam, gay and bouzy, / By this time had met with their joes. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘John Chinaman, My Jo’ in et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 301: John Chinaman, my jo, John [...] Here’s blessings on your head, John, / And more power to your tail. | |
| Weir of Hermiston 289: Jo, sweetheart. |
(b) a generic name for a person, e.g. joe average, joe citizen, the average man in the street; also one who has a job or position, e.g. joe plainclothes, a plain-clothes police officer, working joe one who is employed etc; see also combs. below.
| Modern Flash Dict. 19: Joe, an imaginary person, nobody; as Who do those things belong to? Joe. | |
| Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835]. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Fact’ry ’Ands 92: Why, man, it’s meat ’n’ beer t’ them Joes what go in fer bringin’ ther wanderers ’ome. | |
| Two & Three 20 Jan. [synd. col.] Joe Moofus bamms his wife in the eye with a ham omlet. | |
| Banjo 90: I don’t play no Black Joe Hymns. | |
| ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 333: Joe—term used to designate anyone whose real name is unknown. When used with a place or profession ‘Joe’ indicates a perfect example of the type connected with that place or profession. Thus ‘Joe College’ is a perfect specimen of the college man. Often used with ‘himself’ as ‘Joe College himself’; ’Joe Artist himself.’. | |
| Horse’s Mouth (1948) 245: ‘Just how you say sah,’ said the poor old Joe. | |
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 5 Oct. 19: He was a good Joe as plenty of folk around Harlem know. | |
| Catcher in the Rye (1958) 90: On my right there was this very Joe Yale-looking guy, in a grey flannel suit and one of those flitty-looking tattersall vests. | |
| One Lonely Night 89: His first order would be to sign warrants of arrest for certain political joes who are draining the state dry. | |
| Big Rumble 95: He’s got grocery connections, relief connections—a good joe. | |
| ‘Badger Game’ in One Night Stands (2008) 22: The average joe would have pegged him for a successful young businessman. | |
| Hell’s Angels (1967) 167: They were ‘joe citizens’. | |
| Gumshoe (1998) 39: I’m just an ordinary Joe, says 31-today Eddie Ginley. | |
| Chopper Mag. Jan. 60/2: You can’t fight the man, City Hall, and Johnny Joe Citizen. [Ibid.] 10/3: Joe Goodguy, sound citizen, that was me. | |
| West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 107: I was an honest joe. | |
| (con. 1967) Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 218: Chattering away like Joe Dork. | |
| After The Ball 204: The average Joe or Jane will quickly get used to seeing the reassuring statement and the name of its sponsor. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Joe Citizen. A non-prisoner. Sometimes Joe Blow. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | (con. 1920s) Legs 218: He was a good Joe. | |
| Rivethead (1992) 117: He had his own designs on what he wanted to do with the budget and they surely didn’t include funneling any of it into the frayed pocket lining of Joe Lunchpail. | |
| (con. 1949) Big Blowdown (1999) 148: Karras had told Boyle that this veteran was a good Joe. | |
| Guardian Editor 25 June 8: So much for Edward as an ‘ordinary Joe’. | |
| Guardian G2 28 June 8: Depressing news for Joe and Jane Average. | |
| Guardian Weekend 29 Jan. 18: A lot of them are ‘average Joes’. | |
| Eddie’s World 13: Two office Joes had a late night, brought their work home for the weekend. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 4: A man walked up – Joe Redneck – tall and fat. He wore a Stetson. He wore big boots. | |
| Portable Promised Land (ms.) 175: With a few hundred channels at his disposal, Joe remote splays out on his couch like a King, demanding constant wish fulfillment. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Jake’s Long Shadow 64: The booze did this, to a lot of guys, turned them into Mike Tyson, from Joe-nobody to self-deluded heroes. | |
| Intractable [ebook] [M]undane everyday things taken for granted by the average Joe could be a monumental discovery to me. | |
| Last Kind Words 81: [S]he felt more comfortable with him than some straight-A joe working at the Walmart. | |
| Ringer [ebook] n.p.: I know these things, but your average Joe is in the fucking dark. | |
| ‘Broken’ in Broken 44: ‘Three Joe Lunchbuckets in overalls’. |
(c) (US) a (likeable) person, often used in direct address.
| in N.Y. Eve. Journal 16 Jan. 12: ‘Look at that Joe.’ ‘Oh, it’s a pipe that I can skate if he can.’. | |
| Handful of Ausseys 163: Could you lend us ’alf adollar [...] I ain’t ’ad a feed since yisterdee, dinkum, Joe! | |
| ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 27 Sept. 9/6: So I ask you, Joe, have you ever been blowed with your own dough. Oh, now, you ain’t so ‘sho?’. | |
| (con. 1943–5) To Hell and Back (1950) 77: Hey, Joe, you gotta ceegarette? | |
| (con. 1950) Band of Brothers 266: We’re gonna have us a party tonight, and you’ll meet ’em. They’s good joes. | |
| Cast the First Stone 113: Keep it yourself, Joe [...] you’re too much of a square guy for me. | |
| Burn, Killer, Burn! 93: Okay, Joe, this round is yours. | |
| Green River Rising 212: Hank Crawford, a middle-class Joe from Fort Worth. | |
| (con. 1949) Big Blowdown (1999) 296: Su was a good Joe. | |
| College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Joe (noun & vocative) A friend. |
(d) (Can.) a French Canadian.
| Globe and Mail (Toronto) 19 Apr. 6/6: Their waspish counterparts in Quebec always refer to ‘pea-soupers’ or ‘Joes’. The word ‘Frog’ in that connection went out of fashion 50 years ago [OED]. |
2. (also joey) in Aus. uses [orig. on the goldfields a trooper enforcing the regulations laid down by Gov. Charles Joseph LaTrobe (1801–75) (but note cit. 1859) and the cry Joe!/Joe-Joe!, issued by a miner at the approach of police].
(a) a policeman; spec. on the minefields.
| Life in Victoria I 191: I heard the swelling uproar and the loud chorus of ‘Joes!*’ (*Joe is a term of opprobrium hurled after the police ever since the diggings commenced, but the derivation is still a mystery. Some commentators trace it to the Christian name of Mr Latrobe; but this is an error; the ex-governor was never personally unpopular, except with the editor of the Argus). | |
| Leeds Times 5 Feb. 6/1: He [...] heard many inflammatory speeches against the Government and the Joes and witnessed a row, wherein the Joes were worsted’. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Roscommon & Leitrim Gaz. 30 Nov. 4/1: [I was] ready to clap a stopper over all, if he was a ‘Joe’. | |
| Boy in the Bush 219: Policemen lounged about, striving to look unconscious of the ‘Joey!’ which the miners found time to shout after them in scorn. | |
| In Roaring Fifties 119: The air resounded with the yells of the miners, raised in warning and derision. ‘Jo! – Jo! – Jo!’. | |
| From Rossiville to Victorian Goldfields 82: It had become the usual practice among the miners to shout joe, Joe, Joe, when a blue-coat appeared on the creek [AND]. | |
| Aus. Felix (1971) 9: A woman [...] crying at the top of her voice: ‘Joe, boys! – Joe, Joe Joey!’ [Ibid.] 10: A line of foot police, backed by a detachment of light infantry, shot out [...] There were groans and cat-calls. Along with the derisive ‘Joeys!’ the rebel diggers hurled any term of abuse that came to their lips. |
(b) in generic terms, a policeman, a trooper.
| Two Years in Victoria (1855) I 400: The well-known cry of ‘Joe! Joe!’—a cry which means one of the myrmidons of Charley Joe, as they familiarly style Mr. La Trobe. | |
| Illus. Sydney News 28 Oct. 234/3: Some of the police [...] were now ordered to fall back on the hotel for its protection if necessary. The Joe!, Joe! soon began and some boys threw stones at the windows [AND]. | |
| Wallaroo Times (Kadina) 4 Nov. 3/4: The stupid and formerly incessant cry of ‘joe’ is seldom heard [AND]. | |
| Last of Bushrangers 11: Whenever a policeman or any other Government servant was seen they raised a cry of ‘Joe-Joe’. | |
| Book of the Bush 108: At last I threatened to denounce him as a ‘Joey’ – he was in plain clothes – and have him killed by the crowd. | |
| In Roaring Fifties 108: Jo! was the favourite epithet hurled at the troopers and all representatives of constituted authority. | |
| Affair at Eureka 6: The Police Commissioner and his troopers (‘joes’ in digger parlance) [etc.] [AND]. | |
| Aus. Lang. 95: It was a natural development that police troopers should come to be called joes. | |
| Australian 26 Feb. R11: The cops were called ‘joes’, Moore notes, probably a derisive salute to their boss, the Victorian lieutenant governor, Charles Joseph La Trobe, commonly known as ‘Charley Joe’. |
(c) by ext. of sense 2a, a term of abuse hurled at anyone who was not a miner.
| Illustr. Journal Australasia III. 65: ‘Did you go down dressed as you are now?’ ‘I did.’ [...] ‘Then I’ll be bound that you are annoyed because they called “Joe” after you’ [AND]. | |
| (J.H. Kerr) Glimpses of Life in Victoria 137: A friend [...] lately arrived [...] ventured one day among the diggings, wearing the conspicuous tall hat, which he had always been used to wear at home. He was instantly assailed by cries of ‘Joe, Joe.’. | |
| Lantern (Adelaide) 11 Dec. 6: ‘Yes, I ain’t got no blank objection to be interviewed, Joe.’ (The familiar term joe , I may mention, is a diggings fashion—my name is not Joseph.) [AND]. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Nov. 20/2: My dad who ‘followed the diggings’ tells me that to call a man ‘joe’ on the Vic rushes was the surest way of buying a fight. |
3. (US campus, also joe house) a privy; thus as v., meaning to use a lavatory; joe-wad, toilet paper; also attrib. [supposedly f. the burning of the privies at Hamilton College on one Nov. 5, following the refusal of the President, Joseph Penney, to have them cleaned].
| in N&Q VI (1946) 61/2: Feeling quite lively after my return, disguised myself, and went down and nailed up all the South College joe-doors [DA]. | |
| College Words (rev. edn) 272: joe. A name given at several American colleges to a privy. | |
| Four Years at Yale 45: Joe, the college privy. | |
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 43: joe, n. Water-closet [...] joe, v. To use the joe [...] joe-wad, n. Toilet-paper. | |
| letter 27? Jan. in Eliot Letters of T.S. Eliot 505: I enclose further tracings of the inscription discovered recently in the [...] city hall jo-house at Charleston, S.C. | |
| Amer. Thes. Sl. §84.11: toilet, Joe. |
4. (US campus) beer [the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. of Milwaukee].
| Campus Sl. Mar. 4: joe – Schlitz beer: Gimme a Joe. | |
| Sl. and Sociability 36: The most frequent pattern of clipping is the loss of sounds from the ends of words: [...] joe, from Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company ‘beer’. |
5. see Joe the Grinder n.
As a generic name
In compounds
a generic name used for any otherwise unnamed man.
| Guardian Saturday Rev. 12 June 2: Does it mean that our old friend Joe Bloggs has treated himself to a sex change? |
1. (Aus./N.Z./US) any man.
| Newton Dly Republican (KS) 24 May 3/1: Joe Blow ’ud set upon a keg / Down to the groc’ry store. | |
| [ | | L.A. Times 25 Feb. pt. IV 1/3: Joe Blow, who upon his death left $2500 buried in his back yard]. |
| Harrisburg Teleg. 20 May. 2/4: ‘Joe Blow [a bookmaker] was giving me a fine line of talk about all the good that comes from [horse] racing’. | |
| in Our Navy 15 Mar. 30: Joe Blow [...] lets you look at this one [HDAS]. | |
| ‘Jiver’s Bible’ in Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive. | |
| Four-Legged Lottery 174: Its price gradually increases. It gets the ‘Joe Blows’ as the punters put it. | |
| Syndicate (1998) 30: ‘Mr. — ’ ‘Blow,’ I said, ‘Joe Blow’. | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 226: See yuh around, Joe Blow. | |
| Black Players 258: I can find a better way of spending my life than behind Joe Blow’s desk for twenty-five, thirty dollars a day. | |
| G’DAY 93: Joe Blow doesn’t give a stuff about the flag or the Royals. | |
| Misery (1988) 62: He is not just good old Joe Blow from Kokomo. | |
| From Bondage 163: Joe Blow who comes in off the street to buy the Loft’s ninety-nine-cent special. | |
| Stalker (2001) 528: If it were just Joe Blow, she would have taken out her gun to meet him. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. | |
| (con. 1975) Circle of Six 168: Jimmy asked, as only a New York cop could ask, ‘What’s with the X’s in your names? Malcolm X, Joe blow double X, Supreme triple X. I don’t get it’. | |
| August Snow [ebook] ‘You know you’re just a citizen now, right?’ ‘José Blow’. |
2. (US Und.) a drugs carrier [blow n.3 (4)].
| (con. 1930s) Schnozzola 107: An English gentleman, known as a Joe Blow, was commissioned to accompany the trunks to New York as their dummy owner. A Joe Blow is an intermediary who undertakes the delivery of something without having had actual contact with goods consigned to interested parties. |
1. a generic term for the Chinese.
| Elwood Bulletin 1 Feb. 6/3: I feel fairly safe all the time [in Korea], even though Joe Chink isn’t that far away. | |
| (con. 1950s) Ikon 59: Joe Chink’s on the other side of the hill. |
2. (US drugs) a heroin addiction.
| Crime Partners 8: A drug addict has to have that shit at certain times. It ain’t like a drunk, when Joe Chink says it’s time to fix it’s time to fix, with no shit about it [HDAS]. |
(US) an average person.
| Dly News (L.A.) 25 Nov. Sport 1/4: Mr Joe Citizen has got to take what he can get. | |
| Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 26 Mar. 7/3: Mister Joe Citizen, the kind of gent most of us are. | |
| Breaks 289: They should be out arresting Communists [...] not Joe Citizens like me. | |
| Angel of Montague Street (2004) 15: You’re too mean-looking to be Joe Citizen. |
1. a college boy, esp. one who is self-satisfied and self-indulgent.
| Sth Bend Trib. (IN) 21 Jan. 12/2: The Love Bout / (Chapter Two) / Joe College Makes a Phone Call. | |
| ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 333: ‘Joe College’ is a perfect specimen of the college man. Often used with ‘himself’. | |
| (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 354: You’re all dressed up like Joe College. | |
| ‘Campus Lingo’ in Reading (PA) Eagle 20 Mar. 7/2: Strange indeed is the campus lingo these days of Joe College and Betty Co-ed. | |
| letter 25 Aug. in Charters (1995) I 27: The G.A. with its orgiastic Joe Colleges. | |
| Blackboard Jungle 23: The crew-cut Kid College had not interested him. | |
| Young and Violent 60: I’m going to teach a bunch of joe colleges a course in juvenile delinquency. | |
| Listening to America 100: I started out at KU in ’66 as a real gung-ho Joe College. | |
| If I Die in a Combat Zone (1980) 30: ‘Protect the college Joe,’ Barney said. | |
| Double Bang 110: He was wearing khaki pants and black loafers with a ratty old tweed jacket. ‘Joe College,’ Edmund said. | |
| Homeboy 136: Ringing up drinks for the latecoming Joe Colleges. | |
| Chicken (2003) 64: Kristy’s dancing with some Joe College guy. |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
| Judge (NY) 91 July-Dec. 31: 'Joe' College - Very collegiate. | |
| Really the Blues 77: He was a student at Notre Dame, a robust Joe-College kind of kid, husky and tall. | |
| Rumble on the Docks (1955) 62: The new Joe College cops said there was nothing sadder than an ageing detective. | |
| Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1964) 169: I’d heard he’d picked up with the Joe-college bunch. | |
| One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding 124: I can’ stan t’think o’all them mothahless Joe College one-eyes I’ gonna haff t’work on. |
one who is, or more likely sees themselves, as sophisticated, wordly, etc; also attrib.
| Dly Plainsman (Huron, SD) 24 Apr. 13/6: We don’t put on a ‘Joe Cool’ set, but we put on a show to please everybody. | |
| Dly Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, NC) 29 Apr. 3/3: ‘The jokes you crack for the ordinary joe cool you can’t tell a group of nuns’. | |
| Delinquency, Crime, and Social Process 810: I got a sort of reputation around school. Everybody used to call me Mr. Cool and stuff. | |
| Digger’s Game (1981) 97: I just thought Mr Cool’d stay clear. | |
| Fields of Fire (1980) 47: The angle is to put Kersey on the spot, and let the Colonel play Joe Cool and save us. | |
| Trainspotting 115: He’s aw ready tae steam in now, aw Joe-fuckin-Cool. | |
| Vinnie Got Blown Away 7: ‘Mr Burkett wishes to make a statement on the murder case.’ ‘What murder case is that then?’ Mr Cool. | |
| (con. 1964-65) Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 185: Joey couldn’t go [...] acting tough Joe Cool with people knowing he’d been flattened by a young girl. |
(US campus/teen) a menial, low-paid task.
| DSUE (8th edn) 623: Joe boy, Joe job. One who is detailed for an unpleasant job (a ‘Joe job’): Can. army: since ca. 1940. | |
| et al. Wayne’s World [film script] I’ve had plenty of jo-jobs; nothing I’d call a career. Let me put it this way: I have an extensive collection of nametags and hairnets. | |
| Last Kind Words 26: Most of the burglaries had been for pocket change. Even the crappiest joe job would’ve paid better. |
(US) an ordinary working man.
| Coronet XLV 116: We’ve always tried to appeal to both Joe Lunch Pail and Sam Champagne Bucket [...] But we never patronize or condescend. | |
| Mass Media in Canada 155: He cannot be seduced into spending his disposable income foolishly. The case history of Joseph Champagne-Bucket parallels that of Joe Lunch-pail. | |
| Chicago Trib. 15 Sept. n.p.: Some of them are even being sent to school to learn how to talk to ‘Joe Lunch Pail,’ as one PR executive puts it [HDAS]. | |
| et al. GuyRules 132: We have decided to forgo any hero worship here and instead concentrate on ‘Joe Lunch Pail’. | |
| Ready, Set, Talk! 104: Does it mean something to Tina Teenager or Joe Lunch Pail or Sally Soccer Mom or Glenda Gardener? |
(orig. US) the general public, thus fem. Josephine Public.
| Sioux City Jrnl (IO) 28 July 4/2: This John Public, in prize fight parlance, has been a paluka for some years. He was a set up and then some. | |
| Brooklyn Dly Times (NY) 29 July Sports 1/6: Joe Public [...] will do battle with bookmakers by day and with roadhouse bouncers by night. | |
| Honolulu Advertiser (HI) 1 Jan. 11/2: The games were impotent, and Joe Public refused to follow the league games. | |
| Arizona Dly Star (Tuscon, AZ) 23 July 8/3: ‘With old John Public getting wise on this prohibition [...] the racket’s going to be plenty tough’’. | |
| (ref. to 1920s) Over the Wall 58: I had read and heard about his exploits, but in my mind had pictured him more on the lines of John Public’s popular conception of a tough criminal. | |
| South Bend Trib. (IN) 7 Jan. 22/1: Joe Public looked on in wonder. Then he snickered [...] loud enough to be heard by the master minds of Hollywood. | |
| Really the Blues 103: The hard-cutting broadsides that two foxy studs named Mencken and Nathan were beginning to shoot at Joe Public in the pages of The Amer. Mercury. | |
| Spike Island (1981) 229: D-and-Ds are a different matter, because you’ve got Joe Public involved here. | |
| Fixx 256: Joe Public would doubtless wake up and join the party five or six years hence. | |
| Indep. Rev. 9 July 15: But Joe Public has yet to rally round. | |
| Guardian 14 Jan. 20: Say you, Joe or Josephine Public, smell something rotten around the Commons. | |
| Observer 2 Jan. 7: Once it was middle-aged Joe Public senior who wielded the power. | |
| Viva La Madness 282: Going to [...] follow him till we’re safely away from Joe Pub. | |
| Trinidad Express N'papers 6 Mar. 🌐 We have to send a much more stern message to the officers who think they can treat john and Jane Public as they please. |
(US black) a miserable or unpopular person.
| ‘Negro Sl. in Lincoln University’ in AS IX:4 288: joe sad Name applied to anyone unpopular or undesirable. |
(orig. US) anyone, ‘Mr. Average’.
| Miami Herald 30 Dec. 3/2: The platter was made by Joe Schmo and his Merrie Marijuanas. | |
| Pottstown (PA) Mercury 18 Aug. 7/1: Time was running short for Joe Schmoe. | |
| Panic in Needle Park (1971) 58: Like I might find old Joe Schmo today and buy three bags from him and find that one bag straightens me out. | |
| Stories Cops Only Tell Each Other 162: ‘[E]verybody thinks we’re morons.’ With a motion of his hand he included everyone in the room, in the Police Department. ‘Joe Schmoes’ . | |
| New Society in DSUE (1984) n.p.: Every Jo Shmo on the street will say ... | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 280: Other generics include: [...] Joe, an average guy, as in Joe Blow, Joe Schmo, Joe Six-pack and G.I. Joe. | |
| Guardian Guide 13–19 Nov. 24: They don’t look too hot on Joe Shmoe from Vermont. | |
| My Fractured Life 19: It’s on your second series that you become rich — where you go from being Joe Schmo on a show to it being The Joe Schmo Show. |
(US) an extremely contemptible person, a nobody.
| ‘A Calculus at Heaven’ in Advertisements for Myself (1961) 39: Listen, bud, you ain’t talkin’ to Joe Crap, see. | |
| letter 4 Oct. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 680: They could not lick Joe Shit let alone Mr. Tolstoi. | |
| Muscle for the Wing 96: I’ll be dogged if it ain’t Joe Shit the ragman, live and in person. | |
| in Ghost Dancing on the Cracker Circuit xxii: You tell ’em you want to bring an alligator into their store and they look at you like you’re Joe Shit the Ragman. | |
| Vitamin Wow 126: ‘Damn, they look like Joe-shit-the-rag-man.’ [...] Saudis did not wear a western-style uniform well. |
(US) an ordinary, beer-drinking man.
| Boston Globe 28 Aug. 10/6: [S]houting in Joe Six-Pack’s ear to wake up and face the unsimplistic facts of life. | |
| N.Y. Mag. 5 Oct. 64: John Updike's imaginary basketball player from a drab burg in eastern Pennsylvania: Joe Six-Pack as a Durer drawing. | |
| Texas Mthly Sept. 96: Mike Meatball and Joe Six- pack. Put a couple of extra pleats on a basic pair of pants, and these guys were suddenly living in the fast lane. | |
| How to Talk American 395: Joe Sixpack: the average guy ‘I don’t think that gay rights measure is going to fly with Joe Sixpack.’. | |
| Observer Business 23 Sept. 1: Economists had hoped consumer confidence –symbolised by the stereotypical American shopper ‘Joe Sixpack’ — would be resilient after the attacks. | |
| Intelligent Life Nov./Dec. 116/1: Fewer ordinary retailers are stocking the basic Shaeffers and Parker Vectors that Joe Sixpack used once. |
see snuffy n.2
(US) the average, otherwise unnamed man; also attrib.
| Courier-Post (Camden, NJ) 31 Aug. 18/1: Republic Rapid Transits are the final word in low cost trucks [...] says Joe Zilch, who manages to sell a truck or two. | |
| ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 333: Joe Zilsch—John Doe. | |
| Social Relations and Structures 146: If we turn back to the old distinction between Joe Zilch as man and Joe Zilch as worker, then, assuredly, we shall come again on evil times. | |
| US Congress House Committee on Appropriations Department of State Appropriations hearings 243: Are you part of that mysterious, ephemeral, unknown king-making group who decide that Joe Zilch will have the last job at point X? | |
| et al. Theory and Management of Systems 477: It is simply able to work faster and more tirelessly than you or I or Joe Zilch. | |
| US Congress Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency hearings 333: The coaches get worked up to the point that it is a life or death matter whether Joe Zilch is ready for a Tuesday practice. | |
| Life of Lorena Hickok 306: I could put ‘Joe Zilch’ down for it [i.e. a job application] and it would not be questioned. | |
| Monitoring Government 45: I passed the new Joe Zilch piece of handicapped elephant legislation. | |
| (ref. to 1920s) ABC Classic FM (Aus.) 🌐 Robert Hendrickson says zilch goes back to the 1920s when the name ‘Joe Zilch’ was used to mean ‘a good for nothing college boy’ – someone who was a waste of space, and who was wasting his time. |
In phrases
by no means, not on any account.
| London by Night II i: jack: Who’s to pay? ned: Whichever you please. jack: Oh! in that case you may as well settle it. ned: Not for Joseph! you asked me to tea. | |
| ’Not for Joe.’ [broadside ballad] Not for Joe... Not for Joseph, if he knows it [F&H]. | |
| Places and People 106: There’s a vulgar song you may ’ave heard about the streets, ‘Not for Joseph;’ and I say, ‘Not for Joseph, never no more, at the savin’ game’. | |
| Atlanta Constitution 12 Mar. 1/3: When her sister asked her assistance at some work, she answered, ‘not for Joe’. | |
| ‘The Magistrate’ 🎵 And then we’ve the brat not higher than so— / He won’t go to school, he says ‘Not for Joe’. | |
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. |
(US drugs) a non-addict.
| Narcotics Lingo and Lore 154: Quality folks [...] non addicts [...] Quality Joe – Person not addicted. | |
| Drug Lang. and Lore. |
see under random adj.
a conventional, conservative person; as such seen as honest and dependable.
| Naked and Dead 463: He starts worrying whether you think he’s a right Joe or not. | |
| letter 22 April in Harris (1993) 119: T. E. Lawrence and all manner of right Joes [...] was queer. | |
| Stories Cops Only Tell Each Other 201: ‘I’ve known that guy for some time and I always thought he was a regular joe. He works hard and he works alone’. | |
| (con. 1966) Lords of Discipline 311: It’s kind of normal when I hear about regular Joes from the Corps getting zapped. | |
| Breaks 384: I hated Regular Joes. | |
| Scholar 23: She knew he wasn’t exactly a regular working Joe. | |
| I, Fatty 112: A party gal who lures a regular Joe to Hades with an opium pipe. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Jamaica Star 18 May 🌐 If some regular Joe like me gets caught up, our names are splashed across the headlines. | |
| Lives Laid Away [ebook] A couple of regular Joes just trying to make this month’s mortgage payment. |