Joe Miller

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

After Joe Miller (actor) (1684–1738), the namesake of the 18th-century joke book Joe Miller's Jests.

Noun

[edit]

Joe Miller (plural Joe Millers) (colloquial, dated)

  1. A stale jest; a worn-out joke.
    Synonyms: Joe, Joe Millerism
  2. The point of something; the fun or utility in doing a thing.
    • 1867, George Manville Fenn, Original penny readings, page 59:
      "Don't begin them boots till I gives yer the order," says Jinks, as he goes out.
      "No," I says, "I shan't;" nor I didn't neither, for I couldn't see the Joe Miller of it, and somehow or another Jinks never come inside my place again.
    • 2003, Joe Coyle, Athletics in Drogheda 1861-2001, page 33:
      Had the committee been composed of teetotalers, and the sports run on strict Oliver Plunkett lines, one could understand the Joe Miller of it all; but when the meeting was otherwise conducted and received the patronage of brewers and publicans — well, it was hard lines to say the least that Tommy Atkins should have been permitted to return to his quarters in Dundalk musing over what a temperance or inhospitable set must be the Drogheda wheelers.

References

[edit]
  • John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary