Word.ws English Dictionary

man on the Clapham omnibus

man on the Clapham omnibus noun: any hypothetical reasonable person used by the Courts in considering questions of reasonableness; an everyman.

Noun

man on the Clapham omnibus (plural (rare) men on the Clapham omnibus)

  1. (UK) Any hypothetical reasonable person used by the Courts in considering questions of reasonableness; an everyman.
    • Near-synonyms: man on the Bondi tram, man on the Shau Kei Wan tram, reasonable person
  2. (UK, broadly) Any ordinary person; everyman.

Synonyms of man on the Clapham omnibus

Forms of man on the Clapham omnibus

plural (rare)men on the Clapham omnibus

Origin of man on the Clapham omnibus

First put to legal use in a reported judgement by Sir Richard Henn Collins MR in the English Court of Appeal libel case, McQuire v. Western Morning News (1903), who attributed it to Lord Bowen.

Questions about man on the Clapham omnibus

What does man on the Clapham omnibus mean?
Man on the Clapham omnibus means any hypothetical reasonable person used by the Courts in considering questions of reasonableness; an everyman.
What part of speech is man on the Clapham omnibus?
Man on the Clapham omnibus is a noun.

Words near man on the Clapham omnibus in the dictionary

  1. man of the world
  2. man of war
  3. man on
  4. man on horseback
  5. man on the Bondi tram
  6. man on the Clapham omnibus
  7. man on the moon
  8. man on the Shau Kei Wan tram
  9. man on the street
  10. man orchid
  11. man orchids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: man on the Clapham omnibus (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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