Dictionary

Marlboro Man en · NOUN

Etymology

From the brand name of Marlboro cigarettes; first used in the mid-1950s.

Meanings

1. An iconic male character depicted in cigarette advertisements as a rugged, handsome, physically active, and very masculine smoker; a real or fictional man whose appearance or behavior evokes this character.
   • This one, if not a knight in shining armor, is at least a Marlboro man: a tall, lanky, self-taught lawyer of "broad shoulders," whose personality, "strong and silent," was the very "embodiment of what Texans liked to think of as 'Texan.'" 1990 March 11, Ronald Steel, “The Long Shadow of Ambition”, in New York Times, book review of Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro, retrieved 14 Jul 2014:
   • The weather would have discouraged a Marlboro man. 1958 March 24, “Sport: Ladies' Day”, in Time, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2016:
   • "What are you talking about? Five years of work and a hundred miles of electrified fence couldn't prepare the other island. And you think that, what? A couple dozen Marlboro men were going to make a difference here?" 1997, David Koepp (screenplay), The Lost World: Jurassic Park, spoken by Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Universal Pictures:
   • A rugged landscape, two rugged men—stetsons, corduroy and denim—both gazing terse and tight-jawed at the Wyoming mountainscape. . . . This is Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, but it could have been called Secret Sex Lives of the Marlboro Men. 2006 January 8, Jonathan Romney, “Brokeback Mountain”, in The Independent (UK), retrieved 14 Jul 2014:

Forms

Synonyms

he-man