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• John Henry
  John Henry

  noun

  a person's signature.
• Henry, John
  Henry, John

  A 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.
• “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

American  

noun

John Henries plural

1. Informal. a person's signature.

2. U.S. Folklore. a legendary Black man of exceptional strength and stamina.

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Henry, John ¹ Cultural  

1. A 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” ² Cultural  

1. 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.”

---

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• John Henries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of John Henry

An Americanism dating back to 1910–15; from the proper name

Example Sentences

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

Mr. Walther is editor of the Lamp magazine, a Catholic literary journal, and author of a forthcoming biography of John Henry Newman.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 8, 2026

This monument resides directly across from a series of photographs by John Henry featuring Black mothers similarly holding their sons in urban environments.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 21, 2025

John Henry had his overalls rolled up around his knees as he stood in the water, hammering away at a bridge fashioned from the wreckage of fancy yachts.

From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia

Related Words

• impression
• imprint
• line
• point
• record
• scar
• score
• signature
• spot
• stain
• stamp
• streak
• symbol