Winthrop

[win-thruhp]

noun

1. John, 1588–1649, English colonist in America: 1st governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony 1629–33, 1637–40, 1642–44, 1646–49.

2. his son John, 1606–76, English colonist in America: colonial governor of Connecticut 1657, 1659–76.

3. John or Fitz-John 1638–1707, American soldier and statesman: colonial governor of Connecticut 1698–1707 (son of the younger John Winthrop).

4. John, 1714–79, American astronomer, mathematician, and physicist.

5. Robert Charles, 1809–94, U.S. politician: Speaker of the House 1847–49.

6. a town in E Massachusetts, near Boston.

7. a male given name.

Winthrop

/ ˈwɪnˌθrɒp /

noun

1. John. 1588–1649, English lawyer and colonist, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony: the leading figure among the Puritan settlers of New England

2. his son, John. 1606–76, English lawyer and colonist; a founder of Agawan (now Ipswich), Massachusetts; governor of Connecticut

Example Sentences

He could have called this idea Winthropism, since he identifies John Winthrop—the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the first half of the 17th century—as its earliest proponent.

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“This savage people,” reasoned Winthrop, had developed neither their land nor themselves.

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Winthrop and his cohort began the large-scale white settlement of New England.

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To get around this awkwardness, Winthrop et al. propagated the notion—formalized in the colony’s 1629 seal—that the Native Americans needed the new settlers for their own good.

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Those who crave a more-godly relation to power should ponder a warning from John Winthrop, first governor of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, in “A Modell of Christian Charity“: “It is a true rule, that particular estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the public.”

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