Word.ws English Dictionary

Uncle Sam

Syllables: Un·cle SamUK/ˌʌŋkl̩ ˈsæm//ˌʌŋkəl ˈsæm/

Uncle Sam proper noun: a personification of the United States federal government or (rare) citizens.

uncle sam: a personification of the United States federal government or (rare) citizens
Image: James Montgomery Flagg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Uncle Sam

  1. (colloquial) A personification of the United States federal government or (rare) citizens.
    • Uncle Sam needs brave men and women to enlist in the Army.

Uncle Sam meaning in Malayalam, Arabic, Malay and Indonesian

Uncle Sam in Malayalam

personification of the United States federal government or citizens
അങ്കിൾ സാം aṅkiḷ sāṁ

Uncle Sam in Arabic

personification of the United States federal government or citizens
اَلْعَمّ سَام al-ʕamm sām

Uncle Sam in Malay

personification of the United States federal government or citizens
Pakcik Sam

Uncle Sam in Indonesian

personification of the United States federal government or citizens
Paman Sam
More languagesFewer languages
Uncle Sam in Persian
عمو سام 'amu sâm
Uncle Sam in Thai
ลุงแซม
Uncle Sam in Vietnamese
Chú Sam

Origin of Uncle Sam

From uncle + Sam (diminutive of the male name Samuel), probably based on the initialism U.S. of the United States. While folk etymology suggests that the term was named after Samuel Wilson (1766–1854), a meat packer from Troy, New York, who supplied the United States Army with canned meat during the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom, the Oxford English Dictionary notes there is no evidence that this is the case.

Words formed from Uncle Sam

Words that rhyme with Uncle Sam

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about Uncle Sam

What does Uncle Sam mean?
Uncle Sam means a personification of the United States federal government or (rare) citizens.
What is Uncle Sam in Malayalam?
Uncle Sam in Malayalam is അങ്കിൾ സാം (aṅkiḷ sāṁ). See Uncle Sam meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is Uncle Sam?
Uncle Sam is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Uncle Sam?
Uncle Sam is pronounced /ˌʌŋkl̩ ˈsæm/ (UK).

Words near Uncle Sam in the dictionary

  1. uncle fucka
  2. uncle fuckas
  3. Uncle Joe
  4. Uncle Ned
  5. Uncle Neds
  6. Uncle Sam
  7. Uncle Scam
  8. Uncle Scrooge
  9. Uncle Scrooges
  10. Uncle Sham
  11. Uncle Shmuel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Uncle Sam (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-Uncle Sam.oga.

Cite this entry: “Uncle Sam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/uncle_sam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.