Word.ws English Dictionary

Tommy Atkins

Tommy Atkins proper noun: generic term for any British soldier.

Proper noun

Tommy Atkins

  1. Generic term for any British soldier.
    • O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
      But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play1892, Rudyard Kipling, Tommy
    • A voice I don't want to listen to tells me that this is England's last land triumph; that our military history ends here[…]. Tommy Atkins will serve with pluck and valor wherever he fights hereafter, as always; but the conduct of the war is passing out of our hands.1978, Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance, Back Bay Books, published 2002, page 507

Origin of Tommy Atkins

Said to be a fictitious name inserted in document templates given to soldiers to guide them in filling out account blanks, etc. Found in the publication Soldier's Account Book (1815) and later in King's Regulations (1837). Compare also John Doe and Richard Roe.

Questions about Tommy Atkins

What does Tommy Atkins mean?
Tommy Atkins means generic term for any British soldier.
What part of speech is Tommy Atkins?
Tommy Atkins is a proper noun.

Words near Tommy Atkins in the dictionary

  1. Tommis
  2. Tommo
  3. tommorow
  4. Tommotian
  5. tommy
  6. Tommy Atkins
  7. tommy bar
  8. tommy bars
  9. tommy boy
  10. tommy boys
  11. tommy cod

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tommy Atkins (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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