Sir John Lyons FBA (23 May 1932 – 12 March 2020) was a British linguist, working on semantics. He was born in Stretford, Lancashire. Between 1965 and 1969, he was the founder editor of the Journal of Linguistics. From 1964 to 1984, he was professor of linguistics at the universities of Edinburgh and Sussex.
Upon retirement in 2000 he moved to France. He died on 12 March 2020.