Word.ws English Dictionary

in-joke

/ˈɪnˌd͡ʒəʊk/US/ˈɪnˌd͡ʒoʊk/

in-joke noun: synonym of inside joke (“a joke that is understood or meant to be understood only by certain people who are aware of the details”).

Noun

in-joke (plural in-jokes)

  1. Synonym of inside joke (“a joke that is understood or meant to be understood only by certain people who are aware of the details”).
    • Well, it’s a bit of an in-joke, but Fred has been going to start that diet “tomorrow” for the last few months.
    • We have an in-joke; whenever someone sings a wrong note, they wipe the mistake off their music with an obvious gesture.

Synonyms of in-joke

Forms of in-joke

pluralin-jokes

Origin of in-joke

From in (“having familiarity or involvement with somebody”, adjective) + joke.

Words formed from in-joke

Questions about in-joke

What does in-joke mean?
In-joke means synonym of inside joke (“a joke that is understood or meant to be understood only by certain people who are aware of the details”).
What part of speech is in-joke?
In-joke is a noun.
How do you pronounce in-joke?
In-joke is pronounced /ˈɪnˌd͡ʒəʊk/ (UK).
What is the plural of in-joke?
The plural of in-joke is in-jokes.

Words near in-joke in the dictionary

  1. in-grouping
  2. in-groups
  3. in-home
  4. in-hospital
  5. in-house
  6. in-joke
  7. in-jokes
  8. in-jokey
  9. in-joky
  10. in-kind
  11. in-lamb

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in-joke (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-in-joke.wav.

Cite this entry: “in-joke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in-joke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.