Word.ws English Dictionary

Joe Public

Joe Public proper noun: a hypothetical average or generic member of the public; the common man (or person, by extension).

Proper noun

Joe Public

  1. (idiomatic) A hypothetical average or generic member of the public; the common man (or person, by extension).
    • Quoting Joe Public proved a dangerous game in the 2008 US presidential elections after he was personified in Joe 'the' Plumber, an actual plumber without previous media exposure.

Synonyms of Joe Public

Questions about Joe Public

What does Joe Public mean?
Joe Public means a hypothetical average or generic member of the public; the common man (or person, by extension).
What part of speech is Joe Public?
Joe Public is a proper noun.

Words near Joe Public in the dictionary

  1. Joe Millerism
  2. Joe Millerisms
  3. Joe Millers
  4. Joe Nobodies
  5. Joe Nobody
  6. Joe Public
  7. Joe Q. Public
  8. Joe Random
  9. Joe Schmo
  10. Joe Schmoe
  11. Joe Shmo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Joe Public (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: En-au-Joe Public.ogg.

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