Word.ws English Dictionary

John o' Groats

John o' Groats proper noun: a village in northeast Caithness, Highland council area, Scotland. It is known because the distance between it and Land's End is geographically the longest distance between any two points on the mainland of Great Britain (OS grid ref ND3872).

Proper noun

John o' Groats

  1. A village in northeast Caithness, Highland council area, Scotland. It is known because the distance between it and Land's End is geographically the longest distance between any two points on the mainland of Great Britain (OS grid ref ND3872).
    • "It’s fair getting on my mind," he said, "these horrible things happening. I’d like to get right away from London, just as far as I could—that I would!"
      "Up to John-o’-Groat’s?" said Daisy, laughing.1913, Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes, The Lodger

Origin of John o' Groats

Named after Jan de Groot, a Dutchman who once plied a ferry from the Scottish mainland to Orkney.

Questions about John o' Groats

What does John o' Groats mean?
John o' Groats means a village in northeast Caithness, Highland council area, Scotland. It is known because the distance between it and Land's End is geographically the longest distance between any two points on the mainland of Great Britain (OS grid ref ND3872).
What part of speech is John o' Groats?
John o' Groats is a proper noun.

Words near John o' Groats in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: John o' Groats (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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