Word.ws English Dictionary

square john

square john noun: a prisoner who generally obeys the rules and avoids trouble.

Noun

square john (plural square johns)

  1. (slang) A prisoner who generally obeys the rules and avoids trouble.
    • Occasionally reputable persons, or "square johns," commit a felony of the type that leads to arrest […]1987, John Irwin, The Jail: Managing the Underclass in American Society, page 38
    • Like thieves, square johns are a shrinking proportion of the American inmate population.2017, David Musick, Kristine Gunsaulus-Musick, American Prisons: Their Past, Present and Future, page 27

Forms of square john

pluralsquare johns

Questions about square john

What does square john mean?
Square john means a prisoner who generally obeys the rules and avoids trouble.
What part of speech is square john?
Square john is a noun.
What is the plural of square john?
The plural of square john is square johns.

Words near square john in the dictionary

  1. square gin
  2. square grouper
  3. square groupers
  4. square inch
  5. square inches
  6. square john
  7. square johns
  8. square kilometer
  9. square kilometers
  10. square kilometre
  11. square kilometres

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: square 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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