man jack

9.9

Every single person in a group with none left out

noun

Archaic

: cada uno de nosotros

After the speech, every man jack of the audience applauded loudly.

Examples

Come on, every man jack and woman too, let's get started.
But as Minister for Intelligence, I'd like to inform you that every man jack of us is to be arrested tonight.

Michael Collins (1996)
-You just make sure that every man jack in there is ready.

A Good Year (2006)
I'm equally sure they all died thinking of you... ...every man jack of them, Jack.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
God bless every man jack of you and a happy Christmas!

Synonyms

to a man

vsman jack

3 6.2

To say that every single person in a group is included

is the same in meaning but differs only in wording or form

every man Jack

vsman jack

Informal

1 9.0

Every person, without exception

is the same in meaning but differs only in wording or form

Antonyms

none

∞ 1.0

Not any of a group of people or things

Surface Forms

man jack singular

man jacks plural

Morphology

man + jack

The sense 'every single person' is not predictably built from 'man' + 'jack' because 'jack' does not contribute its literal meaning here (and can mean 'nothing' in slang), so the combination is an idiomatic intensifier rather than a compositional phrase. A B1 learner who knows the individual words but has not encountered the expression will not reliably infer this meaning, making it language-specific and opaque.

Etymology

Man jack may come from the old use of 'Jack' as a simple name for any man. Putting man and jack together makes a clear image of 'every single person', so the phrase now means 'every person' or 'no one is excluded'.