[A personal name; orig. that of the son of Saul, king of Israel.]
1. (esp. in phrase Brother Jonathan.) A generic name for the people of the United States, and also for a representative United States citizen.
Understood to have originated in the expression Brother Jonathan (cf. 2 Sam. i. 26), said to have been applied to Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, by General Washington, who often sought his advice. Hence it is believed to have been applied at first to a New Englander, and at length, like Yankee, in the wider sense.
1816. ‘Quiz,’ Grand Master, I. 25. May she all Europe’s arms withstand, Keep France and Jonathan in awe.
1816–8. F. Hall, Trav. Canada & U.S., 330. A humorous publication entitled ‘John Bull and Brother Jonathan.’
1820. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1840), I. 372. We can inform Jonathan what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory: Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth.
1825. Scott, Fam. Lett. (1894), II. 384. But I do not suppose brother Jonathan would like much so large a fortune passing out of his continent to gild a Marchioness’s coronet in Britain.
1848. Lowell, Biglow P., Poems, 1890, II. 36. To move John [Bull] you must make your fulcrum of solid beef and pudding; an abstract idea will do for Jonathan.
2. See quot.
1847–78. Halliwell, Jonathan, an instrument used by smokers to light their pipes with.
Hence Jonathanization, an Americanizing.
1854. Emerson, in Corr. w. Carlyle, II. cxxxviii. 235. Come and see the Jonathanization of John.
1894. Sat. Rev., 15 Dec., 652/1. The Jonathanization of John is going on … symptoms of American corruption and misrule.
