Word.ws English Dictionary

Rum-Johnny

Rum-Johnny noun: a native who loitered about the wharves of Calcutta seeking employment as a servant with newly arrived Europeans.

Noun

Rum-Johnny (plural Rum-Johnnies)

  1. (India, historical) A native who loitered about the wharves of Calcutta seeking employment as a servant with newly arrived Europeans.
    • At length, one of my own domestics informed me, that he was a Rum-Johnny who had been discharged from my service, in which he held the office of mosaulchy, (or linkboy,) for theft.1810, Thomas Williamson, The East India Vade-mecum, page 168

Forms of Rum-Johnny

pluralRum-Johnnies

Questions about Rum-Johnny

What does Rum-Johnny mean?
Rum-Johnny means a native who loitered about the wharves of Calcutta seeking employment as a servant with newly arrived Europeans.
What part of speech is Rum-Johnny?
Rum-Johnny is a noun.
What is the plural of Rum-Johnny?
The plural of Rum-Johnny is Rum-Johnnies.

Words near Rum-Johnny in the dictionary

  1. rum-dum
  2. rum-dumb
  3. rum-dumm
  4. rum-dums
  5. Rum-Johnnies
  6. Rum-Johnny
  7. rum-pum-pum-pum
  8. rum-runner
  9. rum-runners
  10. rum-tum
  11. rum-tums

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Rum-Johnny (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:

Cite this entry: “Rum-Johnny.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rum-johnny. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.