Meaning & use
Yorkshireman
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A man who was born in Yorkshire, or who lives there.
Grammar: Countable, so it takes a/an in the singular and the plural form Yorkshiremen: a Yorkshireman, two Yorkshiremen.
Patterns
- a Yorkshireman from somewhere
- a proud Yorkshireman
- be a Yorkshireman
My grandfather was a Yorkshireman who moved south for work in the 1960s.
He speaks with a soft accent, but he is a Yorkshireman through and through.
Two Yorkshiremen were sitting at the bar, arguing about cricket.
nouncountablefigurativeinformal
A man seen as having the typical character of people from Yorkshire, especially plain-speaking and careful with money.
Grammar: Used in this figurative way mostly after an or with an adjective; it still has the plural Yorkshiremen.
Patterns
- a typical Yorkshireman
- a real Yorkshireman
- every Yorkshireman knows something
He never wastes a penny — a true Yorkshireman, his friends joke.
She said her new boss was a Yorkshireman who always said exactly what he thought.
Word forms
| plural | Yorkshiremen |
|---|
Common combinations
- a proud Yorkshireman
- He is a proud Yorkshireman and still supports his hometown team.
- a born-and-bred Yorkshireman
- She married a born-and-bred Yorkshireman from a village near York.
- a typical Yorkshireman
- He is a typical Yorkshireman: blunt, funny and never extravagant.
- a Yorkshireman by birth
- Although he lives in London, he is a Yorkshireman by birth.
- a Yorkshireman's accent
- You can hear a Yorkshireman's accent in the way he says 'bath'.
- a fellow Yorkshireman
- He greeted the other guest as a fellow Yorkshireman and they chatted all evening.
Synonyms and how they differ
- Yorkshireman
- There is no common one-word synonym; use Yorkshireman when you mean a man from Yorkshire.
- northerner
- Much wider: it covers anyone from the north of England, not only Yorkshire, and is often used slightly dismissively by southerners.
- Yorkshirewoman
- The female equivalent; use it when the person is a woman or girl, since Yorkshireman would be wrong.
Word family
- Yorkshire proper noun
- The county in northern England that gives the word its name.
- Yorkshirewoman noun
- A woman from Yorkshire.
- Yorkshire adjective
- Used before nouns for things from the county, as in Yorkshire pudding or Yorkshire tea.
Commonly confused: Yorkshireman or Yorkshire? Yorkshireman or Yorkshire terrier?
Yorkshireman vs Yorkshire
Yorkshire is the place; Yorkshireman is the person. Do not say 'he is a Yorkshire' — say 'he is from Yorkshire' or 'he is a Yorkshireman'.
Yorkshireman vs Yorkshire terrier
A small breed of dog, often shortened to Yorkie. It has nothing to do with a Yorkshireman except the shared place name.
Practice
Which sentence uses the word correctly?
Choose one answer.
Option 0 is right because Yorkshireman is a countable noun and needs a before it, and it means a man from Yorkshire. Option 1 wrongly uses the place name as a person. Option 2 adds a before the city name, which English does not do. Option 3 drops the article a, which countable singular nouns require.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Yorkshireman”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.