DCHP-1 Online

Johnny Canuck

• 1a a native or citizen of Canada.

  See also: Canuck ((n.)) (def. 1)  

  • 1910  "Thar ain't no Johnny Canuck kin arrest me."
  • 1953  There were baseball, football & lacrosse games during other seasons, but in winter there was nothing but idleness for red-blooded, sports-loving Johnny Canucks.

• 1b a Canadian soldier.

  • 1957  John comes into many nicknames, here are a few of them. John Bull . . . Johnny Canuck, a Canadian soldier, and Johnny Raw, a new recruit.

• 2 a personification of Canada.

  • 1909  Failing any or all of these [desired trade goods], it was in vain that the Factor displayed before them the wares of John Bull, Uncle Sam, or Johnny Canuck, or any seductive lure made in Germany.
  • 1959  Millions of Asians, Africans and Europeans who'll never see a travelling hockey team or a cartoon of Johnny Canuck, have only one image: the men and women of our foreign service.
  • 1964  That's the spirit of USA which Johnny Canuck will never catch up with.
  • 1967  As far as I know, Johnny made his first appearance as a cartoon character in an 1869 copy of Grinchuckle (page 12), a new Montreal journal that billed itself as "a magazine of mirth and opinion." The cartoonist had already translated Johnny into a Western hat and vaguely British field uniform and used him as a symbol for young Canadians regardless of language.