Word.ws English Dictionary

John McClane

John McClane noun: a dogged and reluctant hero, known especially for sacrificing himself and for crawling through ventilation ducts.

Noun

John McClane (plural John McClanes)

  1. A dogged and reluctant hero, known especially for sacrificing himself and for crawling through ventilation ducts.
    • Burglars, then, far from being interdimensional John McClanes of the built environment sliding through the many unseen topologies of Nakatomi space, are more like human mosquitoes: irritating, seemingly pointless, and unending in number.2016, Geoff Manaugh, A Burglar's Guide to the City, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
    • I settled into my first faculty meeting of the year with my secret plan in place and devised plans to take over eventually. I would go alone. I was going to be the John McClane of that university.2024, Virgil Henry, Academic Inferno - My Academic Trip Through Adjunct Hell, 4 Horsemen Publications

Forms of John McClane

pluralJohn McClanes

Origin of John McClane

From the character of the movie Die Hard.

Questions about John McClane

What does John McClane mean?
John McClane means a dogged and reluctant hero, known especially for sacrificing himself and for crawling through ventilation ducts.
What part of speech is John McClane?
John McClane is a noun.
What is the plural of John McClane?
The plural of John McClane is John McClanes.

Words near John McClane in the dictionary

  1. John Innes
  2. John Law
  3. John Lennon glasses
  4. John Lennon spectacles
  5. John Mastodon
  6. John McClane
  7. John o' Groat's
  8. John o' Groats
  9. John O'Gaunt
  10. John Orderly
  11. John Q. Law

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: John McClane (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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