yokel
UK /ˈjəʊ.kəl/ · US /ˈjoʊ.kəl/ noun
Forms yokels
- noun (slang, derogatory) 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.”
Synonyms
boor bumpkin country bumpkin joskin hayseed hillbilly hick peasant provincial rube rustic yahoo bogger bogtrotter bucolic bydlo culchie carl churl corncob chawbacon
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.
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [Perhaps from an AS. word akin to E. gawk.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “yokel”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details