Tommy Atkins
Americannoun
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Tommy Atkins
plural
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any private of the British army.
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one of the rank and file of any organization or group.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
He feels a personal relationship with his Commander in Chief, the President, as Kipling's archetypal soldier, Tommy Atkins, seems to have done with his Queen.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the palmy Victorian days when Kipling's Tommy Atkins called the British army the "thin red line of 'eroes," few Englishmen could predict how thin the line might get.
From Time Magazine Archive
As a veteran commander, the Field Marshal called it "dangerous" to keep on telling Tommy Atkins that the enemy is not the actual soldiers he will have to fight but vague "Hitlerism."
From Time Magazine Archive
Home Secretary Sir John Anderson, a tight-lipped disciplinarian with a hard but twinkling eye, perfectly appreciates that the moderate whoopee requirements of Tommy Atkins on leave are all but irrepressible.
From Time Magazine Archive
I suspect he’s drawn a bead with effect many a time on poor Tommy Atkins in those days.
From The Fire Trumpet A Romance of the Cape Frontier by Bertram Mitford
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.
