Jack in the green

English

Noun

Jack in the green (plural Jacks in the green)

1. (historical) A person who wore a pyramidal or conical wicker or wooden framework decorated with foliage, as part of May Day processions in England.
   • 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC:

     Mr Merdle took down a countess who was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she was in the proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage. If so low a simile may be admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it.

Alternative forms

• Jack-in-the-green, Jack o' the Green