or Tom and Dick, subs. phr. (common).—Everybody and anybody: cf. ‘all the world and his wife.’ As adj. = commonplace.

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  [c. 1693.  BROWN, Works, III. 72. Offended to hear almost every gentleman call one another JACK, TOM AND HARRY? They first dropt the distinction proper to men of quality, and scoundrels took it up and bestowed it upon themselves.]

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  1733.  D. MALLET, Of Verbal Criticism [CHALMERS, II. ii. 1].

            Rivalling the critic’s lofty style,
Mere TOM AND DICK are Stanhope and Argyll.

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  1886.  R. L. STEVENSON, Kidnapped, 287. He rode from public house to public house and shouted his sorrows into the lug of TOM, DICK AND HARRY.

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  1901.  Free Lance, 30 Nov., 224. i. Such a performance would be monstrous, blasphemous, and indefensible … exposed to the critical comments of TOM, DICK, AND HARRY.

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