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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

john.

A prostitute's client.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈd͡ʒɑn/General-American/ˈd͡ʒɒn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. A prostitute's client.

    US · slang
  2. A device or place for urination and defecation: now usually a toilet or lavatory, but also (dated) a chamber pot or outhouse.

    US · slang
  3. A Western man traveling in East Asia.

    slang
  4. A male mule.

Where this word comes from

From the male given name John (q.v.), whose ubiquity led to extensive use of the name in generic contexts. Its use for toilets derives from John and Cousin John, which both probably relate to jacques and jakes, used in equivalent senses by the British and Irish.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.