Word.ws English Dictionary

port-o-john

port-o-john noun: a portable toilet.

Noun

port-o-john (plural port-o-johns)

  1. A portable toilet.
    • She tried not to notice the garage attendants observing her when she parked to use the phone booth, furtive as a woman slipping into a port-o-john under the scrutiny of male witnesses.2001, Joyce Carol Oates, Middle Age: A Romance, page 208

Forms of port-o-john

pluralport-o-johns

Origin of port-o-john

From Port-a-John (“an American business”), from portable, -a-, & john (“a toilet; an outhouse”).

Questions about port-o-john

What does port-o-john mean?
Port-o-john means a portable toilet.
What part of speech is port-o-john?
Port-o-john is a noun.
What is the plural of port-o-john?
The plural of port-o-john is port-o-johns.

Words near port-o-john in the dictionary

  1. port-crayons
  2. Port-de-Piles
  3. Port-en-Bessin
  4. Port-Francqui
  5. Port-Gentil
  6. port-o-john
  7. port-o-johns
  8. port-o-let
  9. port-o-lets
  10. port-o-potties
  11. port-o-potty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: port-o-john (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-port-o-john.wav.

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