Archie Bunker

American  

noun

1. a poorly educated blue-collar worker, holding ultraconservative, racist, and male-chauvinist opinions.

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Bunker, Archie Cultural  

1. The central character in the 1970s television comedy series “All in the Family.” Bunker's family appreciated and loved him, even though he was bad tempered, ill informed, and highly prejudiced against virtually all minority groups.

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The creators of “All in the Family” intended Archie Bunker to be a parody of closed-mindedness in Americans. To their surprise, many people in the United States adopted Bunker as their hero.

Other Word Forms

• Archie Bunkerism noun

Etymology

Origin of Archie Bunker

From a character in the American television series “All in the Family” which premiered in 1971

Example Sentences

The best, and most popular, of these was Norman Lear’s generation-gap sitcom “All in the Family,” starring Carroll O’Connor as retrograde bigot Archie Bunker, and Rob Reiner as his liberal son-in-law, Mike.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 4, 2026

From 1971 to 1978,” Reiner played Michael “Meathead” Stivic, the progressive foil and son-in-law to Carol O’Connor’s proudly closed-minded conservative Archie Bunker in Norman Lear’s “All in the Family.”

From Salon • Dec. 21, 2025

The character is a funny, if unsettling, mirror who at times — like Archie Bunker before him — earns a degree of empathy.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 9, 2024

At a time when antiheroic leads, with the outsize exception of Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker, were a rarity on television comedies, Mr. Coleman’s distinctly unlikable Bill Bittinger on “Buffalo Bill” was an exception.

From New York Times • May 17, 2024

The recommendation of the research department was that Archie Bunker be rewritten as a soft-spoken and nurturing father.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell