johnny
/ˈdʒɒni
/noun (plural johnnies) informal
1British Used as a name for an unknown man, often suggesting that he is unimportant or insignificant: the security johnny insists that you sign the visitors' book...
- One fella on the bus seemed particularly pleased with himself and not unjustly the crowd called him a johnny.
- It was just those terrible scientist johnnies!
- Whereas the British want to see children's faces light up with joy, those foreign johnnies prefer to scare the living daylights out of them.
2 (also rubber johnny) A condom.I remembered picking up a rubber johnny (presumably used) as it drifted past me and holding it up to the other volunteers, who all recoiled in horror....
- I thought non-Brit readers might like to know that ‘rubber johnny’ is a playground/school yard slang for a condom.
- You can tell it's posh because food is served on a bed of other food, and there isn't a machine in the gents selling rubber johnnies.
3US A gown fastened at the back, worn by hospital patients.Nicholson has a gift for physical comedy, swaying dizzily in a hospital johnny that unflatteringly reveals his derrière.
Origin
Late 17th century (in sense 1): pet form of the given name John; sense 2 dates from the 1960s.