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all-American

American  
[awl-uh-mer-i-kuhn] / ˌɔl əˈmɛr ɪ kən /

adjective

  1. representing the entire United States.

  2. composed exclusively of American members or elements.

  3. selected as the best in the United States, as in a sport.

    the all-American college football team of 1983.


noun

  1. an all-American player or performer.

all-American British  

adjective

  1. representative of the whole of the United States

  2. composed exclusively of American members

  3. (of a person) typically American

    the company looks for all-American clean-cut college students

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of all-American

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Tiafoe, who is seeded 11th, lost to Fritz in another all-American semi-final and was also eliminated by Alcaraz at the same stage in 2022.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

Volkswagen Chief Executive Oliver Blume has poured funds into Scout Motors to revive a historic sport-utility-vehicle brand as an all-American EV startup.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

Tisa Wenger, a professor of American religious history at Yale Divinity School, said religious liberty has long been understood as “an all-American ideal that many Americans are very proud of.”

From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026

The original features “an all-American archetype of a virtuous family pitted against a monster,” while Scorsese depicted a “broken and dysfunctional family and the monster is even more extreme, he’s like a swamp creature.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026

He didn’t know, of course, that I was making up most of what I wrote, pretending to be the all-American daughter my parents wanted me to be.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

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