HBO's “Veep,” starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, left, and Anna Chlumsky, is full of archetypes recognizable in D.C. and elsewhere.

WASHINGTON — When a friend invited Teal Pennebaker to a party in the nation’s capital, Pennebaker had just one question: “I asked her, ‘Will there be a lot of Jonahs there?’” she said.

Pennebaker, 31, a Washington-based policy writer, was referring to Jonah Ryan, the White House liaison to the vice president’s office on HBO’s “Veep” and one of the show’s deliciously obnoxious characters — memorable as much for basking in his proximity to power as for his attempts to use what little status he has to get sex.

“It’s a dead-on, very apt way to describe a certain type of D.C. guy,” Pennebaker said. “It’s such a great descriptor. ‘Oh, he’s such a Jonah,’ or, ‘That party will be all Jonahs. Let’s not go.’”

(For those curious, the answer came back no; the party was a Jonah-free zone.)

If Aaron Sorkin’s “West Wing” represented an idealized Democratic presidency (powerful people doing good things) and inspired a swath of young viewers to enter public service, the latest generation of political television offers a more dystopian vision of the nation’s capital.

The distinctly dark “House of Cards,” on Netflix, serves up powerful people doing bad things, while “Scandal,” on ABC, provides powerful people doing bad things in what they believe are in the service of good things.

But “Veep” manages to repurpose politics as lowbrow farce, and offers perhaps the most realistic glimpse at the banal tasks, humdrum days and outsize egos that make up the daily lives of the city’s political staff members: largely powerless people doing … things.

As such, the characters in the show — which revolves around fictional Vice President Selina Meyer (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her often-hapless, always-cursing staff — have quickly become an in-the-know byword for certain D.C. archetypes, in the same way that “Sex and the City” captured a whole generation of women as Carries or Mirandas.

“These things work their way into our vocabulary, particularly in self-referential communities that like seeing themselves portrayed in the media,” said Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore. “And I think Washington in particular loves to see itself portrayed on television or loves to see itself portrayed in the movies.”

Although Jonah (or, in the words of Klain, “being an obnoxious, pompous jerk”) may be the prototype that has most pervaded the Washington lexicon, almost every character on the show can serve as a convenient nickname for a certain overly eager, overly machinating and overly self-promoting Washington staff member.

There is Dan Egan, the handsome, ambitious, quick-witted and even quicker-talking deputy director of communications. There is Sue Wilson, the brusque and efficient keeper of the gate. There is Gary Walsh, the vice president’s body man, always at the ready with his trusty bag (itself nicknamed the Leviathan) to anticipate his boss’ latest whim.

“I’ve heard people refer to junior staffers who have to do personal stuff for the principal as, ‘Oh, he has Gary’s job,’ or ‘He’s doing Gary work,’” Klain said.

The most ubiquitous Washington type, however, is embodied by Dan Egan.

Jay Carson, a former Democratic political operative and currently a producer of “House of Cards,” said: “I know 55 Dans. Dan is definitely the most realistic.”

“Dan is so universal in Washington — the sort of charming, kind of conniving, good-looking, hard-charging operative,” said Carson, who, it should be noted, is in many ways a bit of a Dan himself. “There are myriad people who resemble Dan.”

Or, as Matt House, a spokesman for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., put it: “You encounter a lot more Dans than Jonahs.”

In perhaps the ultimate sign of cultural saturation, “Veep” allusions are no longer reserved for Washington. Timothy Simons, who plays Jonah, said he’d begun hearing about Jonahs in a variety of professions.

“I’ve heard people talk about Jonahs in their workplace that isn’t political,” Simons said in a phone interview. “I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh there’s this guy I work with who’s a total Jonah,’ but it’s like a day trader.”

Scott agreed that “Veep” shorthand had “started to leak out of the D.C. sphere.”

“I have friends who are agents and managers,” he said, “and they’ve started to refer to their climbing office boys and girls as Jonahs.”