John Henry
noun
a person's signature.
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John Henry
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Henry, John
Henry, JohnA hero of American folktales and folk songs. The stories portray him as a black man, enormously strong, who worked on railroads or on steamboats and died from exhaustion after he outperformed a steam drill in a contest.
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“John Henry”
“John Henry”An American folksong (see folk music) about the “steel-driving man” John Henry. It contains these lines:
John Henry said to his captain,
“A man ain't nothin' but a man,
And before I'd let your steam drill beat me down,
I'd die with the hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord!
I'd die with the hammer in my hand.”
John Henry
Americannoun
John Henries
plural
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Informal. a person's signature.
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U.S. Folklore. a legendary Black man of exceptional strength and stamina.
Henry, John
1
Cultural
“John Henry”
2
Cultural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of John Henry
An Americanism dating back to 1910–15; from the proper name
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:
His cousin started taking him to Santa Anita, where he saw Spectacular Bid win the 1980 Strub Stakes in world record time for 1¼ miles and later followed such stars as John Henry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026
John Henry, 71, from Northampton, who is on holiday with his family, was at a shopping centre when they got an air raid alert.
From BBC ● Feb. 28, 2026
Her manic energy is offset by the two people to whom she is closest: her fragile 6-year-old cousin, John Henry, and Berenice, the family’s wise black housekeeper.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
National Cash Register founder John Henry Patterson elevated the role of sales and the position of salesperson, recognizing that marketing matters just as much as the product.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 23, 2025
I nodded, and John Henry pursed his lips.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
Honoring the century and a half of Henry John Heinz and the legacy he built at the history center that bears his family is appropriate, Masich said.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 12, 2019
Heinz, the American company perhaps most associated with ketchup, didn’t get into the game until 1876, seven years after Henry John Heinz set up the company to sell horseradish using his mother’s recipe.
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2018
Drue Heinz, 103, who used her riches from her third marriage — to Henry John Heinz II, the family behind the H.J.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 6, 2018
His mother and father both died before Hoover turned 9, requiring him to move to Salem, Ore., to live with his uncle, Henry John Minthorn.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 1, 2017
George Washington and Patrick Henry, John and Samuel Adams, were in the noted assemblage.
From Famous American Statesmen by Bolton, Sarah Knowles
They would quickly break into a traditional folk song — perhaps “John Henry” or “Pretoria.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 27, 2023
Wright paints a singular version of the folk standard “John Henry” and gives his guitar a proper workout on Muddy Waters’ “Standing Around Crying.”
From Washington Times ● Oct. 30, 2016
“John Henry” touches upon several themes that C.C.R. went on to explore, foremost among them the nostalgia for some lost agrarian past.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 6, 2015
Marcus hears bluesman John Lee Hooker’s 1949 private recording of “John Henry” in Guitar Drag, along with Jimi Hendrix’s Woodstock rewiring of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “the greatest and most unstable protest song there is.”
From Slate ● Sep. 10, 2014
These songs use sturdy diction and refer to very outdated ways of life; half the lyrics seem to be rewrites of imagined traditional songs, in the vein of “John Henry” or “Erie Canal.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 27, 2011
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
