joe

• enPR: jō
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d͡ʒəʊ/
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /d͡ʒoʊ/
• Homophones: Jo, Joe, Zhou
• Rhymes: -əʊ

From the proper name Joe.

joe (plural joes)

1. (informal) A male; a guy; a fellow.

   I'm just an ordinary joe.

2. (UK, slang) A spy, especially a double agent.
   • 2001, Tod Hoffman, Le Carré's Landscape, page 193:

     Name me a joe in a bad country ... who doesn't fall for a pretty face if she's on his side against the world.

   • 2004, Richard W. Cutler, Counterspy, page 96:

     Soviet troops were permitted to enter the American sector, where they could easily capture and torture an agent to confirm the existence of a Joe house, then cripple American espionage efforts by kidnapping a nest of spies in one fell swoop.

   • 2009, John Fleming, Stoppard's Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos, page 178:

     Then Hapgood turned him into a joe — that is, he works for the British.

   • 2010, Mick Herron, Slow Horses, page 215:

     Lamb didn't look any different, was still a soft fat rude bastard, still dressed like he'd been thrown through a charity shop window, but Jesus, River thought—Lamb was a joe.

3. (historical) Synonym of johannes (“An old Portuguese gold coin bearing a figure of John V of Portugal.”)
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter XCIX. The Doubloon”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 481:

     I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes.

   • 1861, “United States Mint”, “Chapter I. Establishment of Mint—Standard of Coins—Laws Regulating Coinage—Progress of Coinage—Precious Metals in the Country”, in Eighty Years’ Progress of the United States: […], volume I, New York: […]. Worcester, Mass.: L. Stebbins, page 213, column 1:

     Guineas, joes, half joes, doubloons, and pistoles of various origin constituted the gold currency, while the silver was mostly the Spanish American dollar and its fractions: the half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth, with the pistareen and half pistareen.

   • 1863 August, The Historical Magazine, and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History and Biography of America, volume VII, number 8, New York: Charles B. Richardson, […]. London: Trübner & Co., page 245, column 2:

     In the olden time the currency, you know, was a l^[sic] in gold and silver, joes, half-joes (Johannes), pistoles, moidores, doubloons, pistareens, ninepences (12+¹⁄₂ cents), and fourpence-half-pennies (6+¹⁄₄ cents) or “fippenny-bits.”

• Joe

Uncertain. See cup of joe for more.

joe (countable and uncountable, plural joes)

1. (chiefly US, informal) Coffee.
   • 2008 January–February, “70 Ways to Improve Every Day of the Week”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, →ISSN, page 135:

     45 have some joe Week's almost over—now bring it home. Austrian researchers found that a cup of java resulted in a 45-minute boost of brain activity in the regions responsible for attention, concentration, and short-term memory.

   • 2010, Melody Carlson, A Mile in My Flip-Flops, page 221:

     Some people say I make the best joe in town. But you know there's a kiosk over on Eighteenth Avenue, not that far from here.

• cup of joe

joe (plural joes)

1. (Scotland) Alternative form of jo (“a darling or sweetheart”)
   • 1836 Joanna Baillie The Phantom, Act 2. Provost, to a maidservant.

     I fear, my joe, the good that I can do him,
     Or ev'n the minister, if he were here,
     Would be but little.

• ioe

joe f (plural jai)

1. (third-person feminine singular pronoun, oblique case) her

• jala
• joi (masculine)
• jai

• Audio:

  (file)

joe

1. (colloquial) bye

   Joe! - Bye!

• jaue, jouoe

Inherited from Old French joe, from Vulgar Latin *gauta. Compare French joue.

• IPA^(key): [ˈʒo], [ˈʒow]
• IPA^(key): [ˈʒu] (borrowed from French?)

joe f (plural joes)

1. cheek

• ALF: Atlas Linguistique de la France^[1] [Linguistic Atlas of France] – map 724: “joue” – on lig-tdcge.imag.fr
• Delesques, Henri (1887) “joe”, in Dictionnaire de patois normand: […] (in French), page 374
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “*gaba”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 4: G H I, page 5

Inherited from Vulgar Latin *gauta. Attested from ca. 1100 onwards.

• (archaic) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɔðə/
• (classical) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɔə/
• (late) IPA^(key): /ˈʒuə/

(central pronunciations)

joe oblique singular, f (oblique plural joes, nominative singular joe, nominative plural joes)

1. cheek
2. jaw

• French: joue
• Norman: joe, jaue, jouoe
• Walloon: gawe
• → Middle English: joue, goue, jovwe, jowwe, jaue, jeaue, geoue
  • English: jaw

• “joe”, in DEAF: Dictionnaire Étymologique de l'Ancien Français, Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1968-.
• jowe on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
• Pope, Mildred Katherine (1934) From Latin to French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman, Manchester: Manchester University Press, page 210
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “*gaba”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 4: G H I, page 5

• IPA^(key): /ˈju/

joe

1. Superseded spelling of yu.