colloq. or slang. [Familiar abbreviation of the name Joseph.]
1. Short for Joe Miller: see 4.
1834. Southey, Doctor, xvi. I. 159. Of what use a story may be even in the most serious debates may be seen from the circulation of old Joes in Parliament.
1882. Athenæum, 9 Sept., 337/2. Such venerable Joes as the ‘Lapsus linguæ’ story.
2. A fourpenny piece: = JOEY1.
1882. in Ogilvie.
3. Joe Manton. ‘A name given to fowling-pieces made by Joseph Manton, a celebrated London gunsmith (Farmer, Slang).
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxxix. It’s a capital gun; it’s a Joe Manton, that cost forty guineas.
1885. W. H. Russell, in Harper’s Mag., April, 771/1. Malachy … shot with a Joe Manton.
4. Joe Miller. [From the name of Joseph Miller, a comedian (1684–1738), attached to a popular jest-book published after his death.] a. A jest-book. b. A jest or joke; esp. a stale joke, a ‘chestnut.’ Hence (nonce-wds.) Joe-Millerism, the practice of retailing stale jokes; Joe-Millerize v. trans., to render jocular or comic, to turn into a joke (see -IZE, quot. 1866).
[Miller’s chief reputation was made for him after his death by John Mottley, who was commissioned by a publisher, T. Reid, in 1739 to compile a collection of jests, and unwarrantably entitled his work ‘Joe Miller’s jests, or the Wit’s Vademecum.’ Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. Joseph Miller.]
1789. G. Parker, Life’s Painter, xii. What … should not be found in every common jest book or a Joe Miller, p. 14.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxxix. A fool and his money are soon parted, nephew: there is a Joe Miller for your Joe Manton.
1870. E. B. Ramsay, Remin. (ed. 18), p. xxx. Many of the anecdotes are mere Joe Millers.
1882. Ogilvie, Joe-Millerism.
