English

World War I recruiting poster featuring John Bull

Proper noun

John Bull

1. A personification of England
   • 1862, Dickens, One Grand Tour Deserves Another:

     How much longer are we English to assist foreign nations in misunderstanding us, by holding up that ridiculous lay-figure of our race known by the style and title of John Bull?

2. (by extension) Something that is stereotypically English.
   • 2005, David W. Moore, The Other British Isles, ISBN 0786464348, page 183:

     Thatched cottages, manors, old mills, venerable churches and wooded lanes personify a John Bull fancy, neatly tucked into gentle hill folds.

   • 2015, Fiona Farrell, The Villa at the Edge of the Empire, ISBN 9781775537519, page 52:

     Next door to all that noble intention stood a bluff old John Bull of a hotel, Warners, now a pub and backpackers, and next to that, until 1993, a cinema, the last of several that had sprung up around the Square as temples of modernity.

Translations

See also

• Johnny Canuck
• Uncle Sam