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joey

/ˈd͡ʒoʊ.i/noun

joey is a noun meaning “The immature young of a marsupial, notably a junior kangaroo, but also a young wallaby, koala, etc” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled J-O-E-Y and has 2 syllables, and it appears 8.3 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of joey is joeys.

What does joey mean?

noun

  1. 1

    The immature young of a marsupial, notably a junior kangaroo, but also a young wallaby, koala, etc.

  2. 2

    AustraliaslangA young child.

  3. 3

    Ellipsis of joey word.

  4. 4

    IrelandUKslangA parcel smuggled in to an inmate.

  5. 5

    A kind of clown.

  6. 6

    UKslangA member of the Royal Marines.

  7. 7

    datedderogatoryoffensiveslangA person with cerebral palsy.

  8. 8

    datedderogatoryoffensiveslangA stupid person.

  9. 9

    UKobsoleteslangA fourpenny piece, or its value; fourpence worth.

    a joey of brandy

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce joey?

  • /ˈd͡ʒoʊ.i/

Joey has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-joey.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of joey

  • joeys plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is joey?

Joey appears 8.3 times per million words in written English, the 8,036th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Joey in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense kangaroo joey:

LanguageWords
Germanjunges Känguruh

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does joey come from?

Unknown. Older and more general sources state that joey comes from an Australian Aboriginal language (cited as joè), but newer sources that focus on Australian English and Aboriginal languages say the origin is unknown. The Australian National Dictionary includes a sense of “young possum” with citations predating the earliest “young kangaroo” citations.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).