Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun In fiction, drama, or allegory, the archetypical ordinary individual, frequently the protagonist in a parable of some sort.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Perhaps from the Flemish play Elckerlijc (c. 1495) or its English translation Everyman (c. 1520)

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Examples

  • As the antagonist of myth may also be a god, as myth deals with, in effect, a society of gods, so in legend the value of everyman is shifted up to demigod.

    A Theory of Modes and Modalities Hal Duncan 2009

  • The everyman is dealing with the duties that any human being might, and doing so with a weaker will.

    Archive 2009-07-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • The everyman is dealing with the duties that any human being might, and doing so with a weaker will.

    A Theory of Modes and Modalities Hal Duncan 2009

  • As the antagonist of myth may also be a god, as myth deals with, in effect, a society of gods, so in legend the value of everyman is shifted up to demigod.

    Archive 2009-07-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • Or, possibly, the $4.50 gasoline price has absorbed every available erg of populist anger, or -- yet another possibility -- today's financial failures are too complex to stick in everyman's craw.

    Archive 2008-07-01 2008

  • Or, possibly, the $4.50 gasoline price has absorbed every available erg of populist anger, or -- yet another possibility -- today's financial failures are too complex to stick in everyman's craw.

    Your Right Hand Thief 2008

  • We've tried the entitled everyman legacy admission President with disastrous results.

    Source: Hillary TV Ad Campaign Is Now 100% Negative In Most Pennsylvania Markets 2009

  • The one where the nebbish everyman is on one side of the modesty barrier and his bevy of love-sick beauties is on the other?

    13th June '06 flidgetjerome 2006

  • I understand the desire to connect to the "everyman" -- the typical consumer, but here the ad seems to suggest that Windows users simply are not cool.

    The Industry Standard - Comments Theodor Rebegel 2009

  • But this is a post-Promethean world, an industrial, capitalist, consumerist, information age world where the everyman is hero.

    Of Genres and Sub-Genres Hal Duncan 2008

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