Word.ws English Dictionary

John Bull

John Bull proper noun: a personification of England.

john bull: a personification of England
Image: http:/, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

John Bull

  1. A personification of England.
    • 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?1862 December 27, Charles Dickens, “One Grand Tour Deserves Another”, in All the Year Round, page 378
  2. (broadly) Something or someone that is stereotypically English.
    • In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his neighbours is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a domineering nature, steady in fight, imperious to command, but neither curious nor quick about the life of others.1887, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Foreigner At Home”, in Memories and Portraits, New York: Charles Scribner, page 3
    • "In the coach in which I rode, there was a vacant seat till our arrival in Birmingham. Leaving Birmingham I found it filled with a fat Englishman, in drab breeches and gaiter boots, the finest specimen of a thorough John Bull that I had seen—weight about sixteen stone. He wore two top coats, a...1958 October, “Liverpool to London in 1842”, in Railway Magazine, page 682

John Bull meaning in Bengali

John Bull in Bengali

ইংরেজ জাতি, পাকা ইংরেজ

Examples of John Bull in a sentence

  • Leaving Birmingham I found it filled with a fat Englishman, in drab breeches and gaiter boots, the finest specimen of a thorough John Bull that I had seen—weight about sixteen stone.1958 October, “Liverpool to London in 1842”, in Railway Magazine, page 682:
  • Thatched cottages, manors, old mills, venerable churches and wooded lanes personify a John Bull fancy, neatly tucked into gentle hill folds.2005, David W. Moore, The Other British Isles, →ISBN, page 183:

Origin of John Bull

Introduced by Dr. John Arbuthnot.

Words formed from John Bull

Questions about John Bull

What does John Bull mean?
John Bull means a personification of England.
What is John Bull in Bengali?
John Bull in Bengali is ইংরেজ জাতি, পাকা ইংরেজ. See John Bull meaning in Bengali.
How do you use John Bull in a sentence?
Leaving Birmingham I found it filled with a fat Englishman, in drab breeches and gaiter boots, the finest specimen of a thorough John Bull that I had seen—weight about sixteen stone.
What part of speech is John Bull?
John Bull is a proper noun.

Words near John Bull in the dictionary

  1. John Asscroft
  2. John Audley
  3. John Barleycorn
  4. John Bircher
  5. John Blunt
  6. John Bull
  7. John Bullish
  8. John Bullism
  9. John Bullisms
  10. John Chinaman
  11. John Citizen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: John Bull (page history and authors); John Bull (Bengali Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “John Bull.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/john_bull. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.