yokel
nounUK /ˈjəʊ.kəl/ · US /ˈjoʊ.kəl/
Etymology First use appears c. 1812, possibly from dialectal German Jokel, diminutive of Jakob, cf. Yankee (“little John”) and jacquerie (“a peasant uprising”). Alternatively, from dialectal English yokel, yuckle (“a European green woodpecker”), itself probably a variant of hickwall.
1
Derogatory, Slang A person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated or naive.
- They love the scenery near their summer home, but have no desire to mix with the local yokels.
- “[…] my opinion at once is […] that this [robbery] wasn’t done by a yokel―eh, Duff?” “Certainly not,” replied Duff. “And, translating the word yokel, for the benefit of the ladies, I apprehend your meaning to be that this attempt was not made by a countryman?” said Mr. Losberne with a smile.1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Involves a Critical Position”, in Oliver Twist; […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 181:
4 more examples
- […] and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind.1848 June 28, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Before the Curtain”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], →OCLC, page vii:
- He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter VIII, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 88:
- "God damn and blast all you hamfisted yokels!" he was saying. "And you, sir, down there. Take that grin off your face and be more careful, or I'll have you clapped under hatches to sail with us today. Easy, there, easy! Christ, rum at seven guineas an anker isn't meant to be dropped like pig iron!"1938 April, C[ecil] S[cott] Forester [pseudonym; Cecil Louis Troughton Smith], chapter V, in A Ship of the Line, Greenwich edition, London: Michael Joseph, published 1951 (February 1962 printing), →OCLC, pages 40–41:
- I went to New York and bought myself a secondhand stretch limousine twenty-eight feet long, calculated to reduce the most blasé country-club sophisticates to bug-eyed yokels.1985, Peter De Vries, chapter 6, in The Prick of Noon, Penguin, page 119: