John Q. Public
A generic individual; some hypothetical average or ordinary citizenA generic individual; some hypothetical average or ordinary citizen.
Meaning
1 senses(idiomatic, uncountable)A generic individual; some hypothetical average or ordinary citizen.
Near-synonyms: everyman; Tom, Dick or Harry; Joe Sixpack
Even careful safety precautions in the factory do not make it a good place for John Q. Public to wander unattended.
Hans Meier, Max Mustermann, Otto Normalverbraucher
Ива́н Ива́новичIván Ivánovič
Translations
6 languagesBy meaning 1
By meaning 1
Origin
First use appears c. 1938. John Q. Public was the name of a character created by Vaughn ShFirst use appears c. 1938. John Q. Public was the name of a character created by Vaughn Shoemaker, an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Daily News from 1922 to 1952; Shoemaker introduced this character in 1922 but is believed to have added the "Q." sometime in the early 1930s.https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/22/obituaries/vaughn-shoemaker-created-john-q-public.html
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Synonyms
10 synonymsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable