Word.ws English Dictionary

Darby and Joan

Darby and Joan noun: a proverbial married couple content to share a quiet life of mutual devotion.

Noun

Darby and Joan pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A proverbial married couple content to share a quiet life of mutual devotion.
    • "[…] he told me that he and your mother, when they travel together, are always mistaken for a honeymoon couple. Some of the experiences he related to me were really quite amusing." The stranger laughed at recollection of them—"that even here in this place, they are generally referred to as 'Darby...1904 November 19, Jerome Klapka Jerome, “The Passing of the Third Floor Back”, in Saturday Evening Post
    • The house where the Batesons had lived—a dear old couple, a pleasantly tottering, Darby and Joan pair, always ready to welcome little Miss Vane and give her strawberries and seedy-cake.1937, Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

Origin of Darby and Joan

John Darby and his wife Joan were first mentioned in print in a poem published in The Gentleman's Magazine by Henry Woodfall in 1735.

Questions about Darby and Joan

What does Darby and Joan mean?
Darby and Joan means a proverbial married couple content to share a quiet life of mutual devotion.
What part of speech is Darby and Joan?
Darby and Joan is a noun.

Words near Darby and Joan in the dictionary

  1. darbs
  2. darbuka
  3. darbukah
  4. darbukas
  5. darby
  6. Darby and Joan
  7. Darbyism
  8. Darbyist
  9. Darbyists
  10. Darbyite
  11. Darbyites

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Darby and Joan (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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