jane

name

1. A female given name from French, the standard feminine form of John since the 17th century.

   “In latter years some of the better and nicer sort, misliking Joan, have mollified the name of Joan into Jane, as it may seem, for that Jane is never found in old Records; and as some will, never before the time of King Henry the eight.”

   “People will please their fancies, and every lady has favourite names. I myself have several, and they are mostly short and simple. Jane, that queenly name! Jane Seymour, Jane Grey, 'the noble Jane de Montford;' - - -”

   “"What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maids with unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it." "An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly; "unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name."”

   “On some level, the filmmakers behind Monster Trucks must have recognized the ill fit of Till playing a teenager, because they cast Jane Levy, a 27-year-old who can pass for younger but not a decade younger, as Meredith, a nerdy classmate of Tripp’s who moons over him as she insists on making an appointment to tutor him in biology. […] Till is somewhere on the Hemsworth spectrum (more engaging than Liam; not as charismatic at Chris), but Levy is wholly charming as his enthusiastic sidekick.”

   “In the amended complaint, Carter is accused of raping the then-13-year-old Jane Doe at an afterparty for the MTV Video Music Awards in the year 2000.”

2. A surname originating as a patronymic derived from a Middle English variant of John.

noun

1. (colloquial)used as a placeholder name for any woman, especially a young working-class woman
2. (slang)A girlfriend.

   “What happened to your regular Jane?”

3. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of jane (“female client of a prostitute”).
4. (obsolete)A silver Genovese coin, first used in England in the 14th century.

   “14th c, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Rime of Sire Thopas, The Canterbury Tales, 1793, A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain, Volume 1, page 124, His robe was of chekelatoun, / That coste many a jane.”

   “Certes was but a common Courtisane, / Yet flat refusd to haue a do with mee, / Because I could not giue her many a Iane.”

5. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of Jane, a woman.
6. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of jean.

   “Ye miscellaneous, ignoble manufacturing individuals, ye have produced too much! We accuse you of making above two-hundred thousand shirts for the bare backs of mankind. Your trousers too, which you have made, of fustian, of cassimere, of Scotch-plaid, of jane, nankeen and woollen broadcloth, are they not manifold?”

7. A female client of a prostitute.

   “The Swedish system, seemingly, does not target “janes” (female clients of sex workers).”