Help end medical misogyny. Sign our petition.

Help end medical misogyny.
Sign our petition.

Sign the petition

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To have not realised that "Plonker" means penis.

175 replies

OonaStubbs · 06/07/2025 17:00

Until today when DP told me. I was very surprised as it never occurred to me. I also can't believe that they got away with saying it on TV in the 80s during family viewing time!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
10
SerendipityJane · 06/07/2025 18:24

Surely we've all worked with men ?

Any word can mean penis if they try. After all, it's all they ever think about ...

Nourishinghandcream · 06/07/2025 18:28

olderbutwiser · 06/07/2025 17:14

Plonker was definitely an acceptable substitute for penis when I was young. (I’m 66).

Edited to add:

Also, dick.

Edited

Agree.👍
I am a few years younger than you but it was always a name for a willy when I was growing up.

I can't remember the whole joke but there is a bit where "he pulled out his plonker and slapped it on the table....".

morefamiliar · 06/07/2025 18:30

.

To have not realised that "Plonker" means penis.
jackstini · 06/07/2025 18:33

It’s definitely both - in my 50s and heard it used in both ways a lot in my childhood/teenage years

Oddly I remember some using the term ‘donkey’s plonker’ but have no idea why!
Anyone shed any light on that one…?

NervyWegovy · 06/07/2025 18:38

Mid 30s and definitely heard it used both ways. Im amazed so many have never heard it used as such

KnewYearKnewMe · 06/07/2025 18:38

It was absolutely a slang for penis when I was a teen in the early 80s… then it became a synonym for wally, a la Del Boy and Rodney.

i guess I assumed Del was saying “don’t be penis/dick’ in a more acceptable way.

Same as twat and c*unt are synonyms for vagina, and have been used as idiot & worse.

KnewYearKnewMe · 06/07/2025 18:39

Weekmindedfool · 06/07/2025 17:32

Do you ever question your DP OP or do you just believe everything he says?

well he’s right in this case!

ManyATrueWord · 06/07/2025 18:41

"Are you pulling my plonker?" is a phrase I remember.

Muffsies · 06/07/2025 18:41

Sorry if someone has already said this, but it doesn't mean penis, it's an old slang term for a condom.

I only know this because it's cropped up in a couple of books I've read that were written in the 1950s / 60s. Basically "plonking" a condom on your penis became "plonker". Despite the so-called sexual revolution of the 60s, things like condoms were widely used, but still taboo, so you needed a slang term for them.

I don't know when it became a term for being stupid - but most things to do with penises become a term for being stupid, don't they?

Lincslady53 · 06/07/2025 18:41

Certainly in use in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire in the 50s and 60s. My dad used the word with my brothers.

Kimwestonhelpless · 06/07/2025 18:46

Coffeeishot · 06/07/2025 18:07

I didn't know what Twat mean until recently! I am scottish and we have another word for "it" so I didn't twig

I'm also Scottish I genuinely thought twat was a variation of twit.
Obviously not now 😁at least the word we use there can't be any confusion.

MaryGreenhill · 06/07/2025 18:48

Your DH is a plonker OP and so are you for listening to him

Coffeeishot · 06/07/2025 18:48

Kimwestonhelpless · 06/07/2025 18:46

I'm also Scottish I genuinely thought twat was a variation of twit.
Obviously not now 😁at least the word we use there can't be any confusion.

Yes i thought it was a twit 😂

FamingolosForDays · 06/07/2025 18:50

33 and only ever heard it to mean "idiot" or wally etc. I'll think twice before calling someone a plonker now!🤣

MasterBeth · 06/07/2025 18:54

MaryGreenhill · 06/07/2025 18:48

Your DH is a plonker OP and so are you for listening to him

You’re the plonker.

Many people on this thread have written that, yes, the word plonker can mean penis as well as idiot. They cite examples of when and where it has been used, and point to dictionary definitions and textual examples of its use to mean penis.

And you don’t believe them??

How arrogant you must be to believe that your ignorance of something trumps other people’s evidence of it.

TheNinny · 06/07/2025 18:55

thought it was another term for a’poo’

SprayWhiteDung · 06/07/2025 18:56

TulipTuesday · 06/07/2025 18:12

I’m sure I’ve seen an Only Fools documentary where John Sullivan says he didn’t think he’d be able to get away with the use of ‘Plonker’ in the show due to its meaning.

Yes, there are often words where they have a strong undercurrent of rudery amongst those who know, but people in an official capacity (who may or may not have any sense of humour) will not realise - or there may be some deniability - and so they will be allowed through.

I remember an episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, where an authority figure used the word Herbert, because it was his own actual name, but the viewer was clearly supposed to understand it in context as implying 'homosexual' (obviously, they were very different times). He was testing Frank with a simple word logic puzzle:

"My sister Amanda has three children; my brother Alan has two children; but I do not have any children, because I am a Herbert".

The double-intendre was very clear in the phrasing; otherwise, he would surely just have said "My name is Herbert".

The one that I think is the most surprising is the word 'berk' - which has long been widely used as a completely innocent, child-friendly word, the equivalent of 'silly billy' - when it's actually rhyming slang for probably the most offensive word that you could possibly call somebody: as in 'Berkshire Hunt'.

TheNinny · 06/07/2025 18:56

but only heard it used for someone being an idiot

oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends · 06/07/2025 19:00

TheNinny · 06/07/2025 18:56

but only heard it used for someone being an idiot

A ninny was a "canting, whining, beggar" originally !

BlueEyedBogWitch · 06/07/2025 19:01

I just asked DH what a plonker is and he said. “Isn’t it your dick?”

I just thought it meant idiot.

Maybe it means both.

SprayWhiteDung · 06/07/2025 19:03

oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends · 06/07/2025 19:00

A ninny was a "canting, whining, beggar" originally !

I always assumed that it was just short for nincompoop.

Maybe I was mistaken!

Foreverm0re · 06/07/2025 19:04

Always just meant wally to me.

WomanOfSteel · 06/07/2025 19:13

TulipTuesday · 06/07/2025 18:12

I’m sure I’ve seen an Only Fools documentary where John Sullivan says he didn’t think he’d be able to get away with the use of ‘Plonker’ in the show due to its meaning.

I watched that too and was going to post the same thing. 🙂

eleanorwish · 06/07/2025 19:15

Definitely means penis, and like someone upthread, I have heard the term donkey’s plonker, but can’t remember where