all-American

See also: All-American

English

WOTD – 4 July 2019

Etymology

From all- +‎ American.[1] Americanism first recorded in the 1880s; the substantive usage originating early on as an ellipsis of all-American athlete, player, team; thereafter transferred to apply broadly to an All-American boy, girl, person.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: ôl′ə-mĕr′ĭ-kən
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌɔːl əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kən/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˌɔl əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kən/
  • Hyphenation: all-A‧mer‧i‧can

Adjective

all-American (not comparable)

  1. Comprising things that are wholly from the United States of America; completely made in the United States.
    • 1922 December, “The New ‘All-American’ Audio Frequency Transformers [advertisement]”, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Radio News, volume 4, number 6, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, →OCLC, page 1221:
      "All-American" Transformers. Perfected first, from the stand-point of correct engineering, by proper turns radio, impedance and shielding—then, in our latest models, given the finishing touches of outward beauty that the more critical eye demanded. […] Your dealer has "All-American" Transformers.
    • [2001], James West, chapter 8, in The End of an Era: My Story of the L-1011, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 71:
      The DC-10 with a GE engine would be wrongfully touted as an all-American airplane. The GE engine was part French. The DC-10 had Italian fuselage sections. There was little awareness of the subcontracts with offshore suppliers.
    • 2009, William J. Palmer, “Neo-spin”, in The Films of the Nineties: The Decade of Spin, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →DOI, →ISBN, page 218:
      One month director John Woo might be directing Jackie Chan in Rumble in the Bronx (1996), and the next an all-American cast in Broken Arrow (1999) or Face Off (2000),[sic] both with John Travolta.
    • 2018 June 5, Jonah Engel Bromwich, Vanessa Friedman, Matthew Schneier, “Kate Spade, whose handbags carried women into adulthood, is dead at 55”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 6 June 2018:
      Her name [Kate Spade] became a shorthand for the cute, clever bags that were an instant hit with cosmopolitan women in the early stages of their careers and, later, young girls — status symbols of a more attainable, all-American sort than a Fendi clutch or Chanel bag.
  2. Regarded as embodying the ideal qualities of the United States; typically American; (specifically) of a person: courageous, heroic; honest, wholesome, etc.
    • 1968, Richard M[ercer] Dorson, “Folklore in Relation to American Studies”, in Ray B[roadus] Browne, Richard H. Crowder, Virgil L. Lokke, William T. Stafford, editors, Frontiers of American Culture, [West Lafayette, Ind.]: Purdue University Studies, →OCLC, page 191:
      The [Davy] Crockett revival of the 1950's engineered by Walt Disney presented an all-American boy scout type as a mass-culture hero.
    • 2010, Kathleen C. Winters, “Off and Running”, in Amelia Earhart: The Turbulent Life of an American Icon, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 89:
      Amelia [Earhart] looked the part of an all-American girl—pretty, confident yet slightly demure, exhibiting not a trace of brashness.
    • 2012, Larzer Ziff, “America as Middle Class: Adolescence, Frank Merriwell, Penrod”, in All-American Boy (Discovering America; 4), Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 95:
      Tom Sawyer may have been called an all-American boy because his thoughts and actions were typical of the thoughts and actions of all American boys.
    • 2014 March 26, Matthew Quaine Thompkins, “Hide the Gun”, in The Travels of the Black Raven, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 249:
      His name was Nate, and he was the definition of an all-American small-town guy. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and wore a leather jacket with an eagle on the back. He was tall and had a strong, confident walk.
  3. (sports) Alternative letter-case form of All-American.
    • 2024 September 6, Jordan Valinsky, “Ticket prices for the all-American men’s matchup at the US Open are surging”, in CNN‎[2]:
      The highly anticipated all-American matchup between Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe — marking the first US Open semifinals between two US men in nearly 20 years — will cost you quite a few Honey Deuces to attend.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

all-American (plural all-Americans)

  1. A person or thing regarded as embodying the ideal qualities of the United States of America; typically American; (specifically) a person from the United States who is courageous, heroic, honest, wholesome, etc.
    He was regarded by the other soldiers as an all-American for his courage in battle.
    • 2013, Eulalia Wycoff, Rajeev Sooreea, “How ‘American’ are ‘All-American’ Brands?: A Case of Gap, Inc. as ‘Made in America’ Brand”, in Anshu Saxena Arora, editor, International Business Realisms: Globalizing Locally Responsive and Internationally Connected Business Disciplines (International Marketing and Management Research), New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 80–81:
      When asked whether Gap, Inc. would still gain acceptance as an "all-American" if its brand manufacturing process was switched significantly abroad, given its customer loyalty and the reputation that it has already established, respondents said the brand would probably no longer be seen as all-American, which would be detrimental to the brand since it still has a stronger presence in the American market than its overseas market.
  2. Ellipsis of all-American athlete, player, team (chiefly sports), all-American boy, girl, or person (loosely, transferred sense)
  3. (sports) Alternative letter-case form of All-American.
    Synonym: All-America

Translations

References

  1. ^ “all-American, adj. and n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2012; “all-American”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.