Word.ws English Dictionary

Brother Jonathan

Brother Jonathan proper noun: the personification and emblem of New England. He is also an allegory of capitalism and transcendent aspirations, and, in the past, has occasionally been the national personification of the entire United States.

brother jonathan: the personification and emblem of New England. He is also an allegory of capitalism and...
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Proper noun

Brother Jonathan

  1. The personification and emblem of New England. He is also an allegory of capitalism and transcendent aspirations, and, in the past, has occasionally been the national personification of the entire United States.

Origin of Brother Jonathan

Said to have originated from George Washington referring to the patriotic Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut, by this name.

Questions about Brother Jonathan

What does Brother Jonathan mean?
Brother Jonathan means the personification and emblem of New England. He is also an allegory of capitalism and transcendent aspirations, and, in the past, has occasionally been the national personification of the entire United States.
What part of speech is Brother Jonathan?
Brother Jonathan is a proper noun.

Words near Brother Jonathan in the dictionary

  1. brother chip
  2. brother from another mother
  3. brother german
  4. brother in Christ
  5. brother in law
  6. Brother Jonathan
  7. brother's wife
  8. brother's wives
  9. brother-german
  10. brother-husband
  11. brother-husbands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Brother Jonathan (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Brother Jonathan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brother_jonathan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.