Archie Bunker

noun

1. a poorly educated blue-collar worker, holding ultraconservative, racist, and male-chauvinist opinions.

Bunker, Archie

1. The central character in the 1970s television comedy series “All in the Family.” Bunker's family appreciated and loved him, even though he was bad tempered, ill informed, and highly prejudiced against virtually all minority groups.

Notes

The creators of “All in the Family” intended Archie Bunker to be a parody of closed-mindedness in Americans. To their surprise, many people in the United States adopted Bunker as their hero.

Other Words From

• Archie Bunker·ism [buhng, -k, uh, -riz-, uh, m], noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of Archie Bunker¹

From a character in the American television series “All in the Family” which premiered in 1971

Example Sentences

The character is a funny, if unsettling, mirror who at times — like Archie Bunker before him — earns a degree of empathy.

From Los Angeles Times

Between the peaks, his career traces the familiar shape of an actor going where the work goes, including a reunion with Norman Lear on the short-lived “704 Hauser,” about a Black family moving into Archie Bunker’s old home; a recurring parts on the UPN Debbie Allen-LL Cool J sitcom, “In the House” and the CBS crime drama “The District”; and the NBC crime drama “Hunter.”

From Los Angeles Times

Lear and Amos mended their relationship to the point that Lear gave him top billing in the short-lived CBS sitcom “704 Hauser,” the final “All in the Family” spinoff in which Amos stars as a liberal father who moves into Archie Bunker’s former home in Queens.

From Salon

The short-lived series starred Amos as the liberal father of a young conservative activist living in Archie Bunker’s old house in Queens.

From Los Angeles Times

And he wields insults — ”I have hemorrhoids that are more useful than you” — with a poetic fluency last seen in Archie Bunker, made even more stinging by the educated vocabulary and London accent.

From Los Angeles Times