The term everyman traces to an English morality play from the early 1500s: The Summoning of Everyman.^[4] The play's protagonist is an allegorical figure representing an ordinary human faced with imminent death; according to literature scholar Harry Keyishian he is portrayed as "prosperous, gregarious, [and] attractive".^[6] Everyman is the only human character in the play; the others are embodied ideas such as Fellowship, who "symbolizes the transience and limitations of human friendship."^[6]

The use of the term everyman to refer generically to a portrayal of an ordinary or typical human being dates to the early 20th century.^[7] The term everywoman^[8] originates in the same period, having been used by George Bernard Shaw to describe the character Ann Whitefield in his play Man and Superman.^[9]

An everyman is crafted so that most audience members can readily situate themselves in his shoes. Although the everyman may face obstacles and adversities that a hero might, archetypal heroes react rapidly and vigorously by manifest traits, whereas an everyman typically avoids engagement or reacts ambivalently, until the situation, growing dire, demands effective reaction to avert disaster. Such a round, dynamic character—that is, a character showing depth and development—is then generally a protagonist.^[10]

Or if lacking depth and development—thus a flat, static character—the everyman is a secondary character.^{[citation needed]} Especially in literature, there is often a narrator, as the written medium enables extensive explication of, for example, backstory, tangents, physical details, and mental content. An everyman narrator may draw little notice, whether by other characters or sometimes even by the reader, since the narration emerges, then, from the story world. And if neutral or relatable enough, the narrating everyman, like Ché in the musical Evita,^[11][12] may even, breaking the fourth wall directly address the audience.^{[citation needed]}

• Average Joe – wholly average person
• Commoner – person neither nobility, royalty, nor priesthood
• Elckerlijc - Dutch medieval morality play
• Everyman's right – freedom to roam
• Kafkaesque – everyman being overwhelmed by vast, dehumanizing social labyrinth
• Man on the Bondi tram – hypothetical reasonable Australian
• Person having ordinary skill in the art
• John Q. Public – generic, hypothetical "common man"
• Reasonable person – term helping a jury interpret a law's wording
• Straight man
• T.C. Mits – acronym for "the celebrated man in the street"
• The man on the Clapham omnibus – hypothetical reasonable person
• Zé Povinho – Portuguese everyman