Word.ws English Dictionary

johnless

johnless adjective: without a device or place for urination and defecation.

Adjective (1)

johnless (not comparable)

  1. (US, rare, slang) Without a device or place for urination and defecation.
    • With the prancing daffodil-crowned sweetheart of the fourth floor, the worthless canary and all too real fire of the third, with the sleep-disturbing parties of the second, and the oft-times homeless and “johnless” refugees from the first, we have had enjoyable, touching moments which have become...1956, “Herr House”, in Kay Brown, editor, Narva 1956, Parkville, Mo.: Park College, →OCLC, page 113
    • I guess they sang “In the Mood” sometimes on johnless prison ships making for Manchuria.1962 June, John Clellon Holmes, “A Few Loves, a Few Deaths: 1945-1950”, in William H. Ryan, editor, Contact […], volume 3, number 2 (10 overall), Sausalito, Calif.: Angel Island Publications, →ISSN...

Adjective (2) capitalized: Johnless

Johnless (not comparable)

  1. (rare) Without someone named John.
    • John Smith has been found in Hawaii and nominated for something. He is a rara avis. If you ask your next friend if he ever knew a John Smith, the chances are nine out of nine-and-half that he will say no. The name is often used to pad the directory of some aspiring town but it rarely occurs in real...1903 September 15, “The Smiths”, in Hawaiian Gazette, volume XXXVIII, number 75 (2521 overall), Honolulu, Hawaii Territory, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4, column 3
    • If you are John Smith, you must John-Smith yourself with hourly affirmation; and if you are Cecil Smythe, you must know, with granite certainty, that you are he. You are John or you are Cecil only because you have, with infinite age-long effort, projected yourself out of the mass—the anonymous...1914, Vance Thompson, “The Hive and The Bee”, in The Ego Book: A Book of Selfish Ideals, New York, N.Y.: E. P. Dutton & Company […], →OCLC, section II, page 156

Origin of johnless

From john (“a device or place for urination and defecation”) + -less (“without”).

From John + -less.

Questions about johnless

What does johnless mean?
Johnless means without a device or place for urination and defecation.
What part of speech is johnless?
Johnless is an adjective.

Words near johnless in the dictionary

  1. Johnij
  2. johnin
  3. johninnesite
  4. johnins
  5. Johnkat
  6. johnless
  7. Johnlock
  8. Johnlocker
  9. Johnlockers
  10. Johnmeyer
  11. Johnna

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: johnless (page history and authors); Johnless (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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Cite this entry: “johnless.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/johnless. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.