Every Man Jack of Them

Everyone. The older form of everyone was everichon, often divided into every chone, corrupted first into every-john, then into every Jack, then perverted into every man Jack of ʹem.

“I shall them soon vanquish every chone.”

Shepherd’s Kalender.

“To have hadde theym … . slayne everye chone.”—More: On the Passion Weeks.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.