every man Jack/mother's son
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every man jack of us/them
dated Everyone in a particular group. The phrase is not only used exclusively in reference to men. I don't know how many people live in this city, but every man jack of them was riding the subway with me this morning!
every mother's son of them
Everyone in a particular group. The phrase is not only used exclusively in reference to men. I don't know how many people live in this city, but every mother's son of them was riding the subway with me this morning!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
every man Jack/mother's son
Everyone without exception. The first term has been traced to Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge (1841) and has remained largely British. The second is considerably older, appearing in the Middle English legend of Kyng Alisaunder (ca. 1300)—“Mekely ilka modir sound”—as well as in Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (1485) and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1596)—“That would hang us, every mother’s son.” It was surely a cliché by the time Gilbert and Sullivan had the Dragoons sing, “The soldiers of our Queen are linked in friendly tether, Upon the battle scene they fight the foe together, There every mother’s son prepared to fight and fall is; the enemy of one the enemy of all is” (Patience, 1881). Also see every Tom, Dick, and Harry.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer