Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A personification of England or the English.
  • noun A typical Englishman.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An Englishman; also, the English collectively.
  • noun A game in which the contestants throw pennies upon a flat stone divided into sixteen small squares, each marked with a certain number, and score according to the numbers of the squares upon which the pennies remain.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A personification of England

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a man of English descent

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After John Bull, a character in Law Is a Bottomless Pit by John Arbuthnot.]

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Examples

  • [36] The term John Bull came into the English language in

    Life of Johnson Boswell, James, 1740-1795 1887

  • An old cove that they called John Bull -- I don't know his right name, he was a fat old cove -- he used to come there to hire cars, and Henery used to drive him.

    Three Elephant Power and Other Stories 1902

  • There is one called John Bull on the Guadalquivir, the chief incident in which occurred to me and a friend of mine on our way up that river to Seville.

    Autobiography of Anthony Trollope Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882 1883

  • The John Bull was a complete success and had a distinguished career.

    The Age of Invention : a chronicle of mechanical conquest Holland Thompson 1906

  • The character later starts a large-scale brawl, and in the confusion, a British-themed pub called John Bull's Fish and Chips is blown up.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed John Doyle 2009

  • Personification of the UK in eighteenth-century prints at the Lewis Walpole Library search 'John Bull' and much, much more.

    John Bull tellurian 2008

  • Personification of the UK in eighteenth-century prints at the Lewis Walpole Library search 'John Bull' and much, much more.

    Archive 2008-07-01 tellurian 2008

  • A scandal like this makes me think that maybe 'John Bull' wasn't so far off the mark after all...

    They Should Hang Their Heads in Shame 2007

  • "John Bull," and another from "An Eton Boy," animadverting upon Mr. Seekamp's grammar.

    The Magnificent Montez From Courtesan to Convert Horace Wyndham

  • Ruskin, Professor, on _Punch's_ representations of the poor, 3; on _Punch_ Staff as citizens, 111; on "General Février," 176; on _Punch's_ politics, 197; on "John Bull," 206; on the "Song of the Shirt," 334;

    The History of "Punch" M. H. Spielmann

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