bumpkin
/ˈbʌmpkɪn/ noun
Forms bumpkins
- noun A clumsy, unsophisticated person; a yokel.
- noun (nautical) A short boom or spar used to extend a sail or secure a stay.
- noun Dance, a series of reels, Scottish.
Synonyms
bogan boor chawbacon chuff churl clenchpoop clown cornball jay kern lamb lubber lout rube Tony Lumpkin tyke peasant unsophisticate yahoo yokel hick hayseed
Etymology
From Dutch boomken (“shrub, little tree”), equivalent to boom + -kin. Note that the English word boom is etymologically related to the aforementioned in the sense of "large stem", or "big tree". Compare German Baumke, Bäumchen.
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [The same word as bumkin, which Cotgrave defines thus: "Bumkin, Fr. chicambault, the luffe-block, a long and thick piece of wood, whereunto the fore-sayle and sprit-sayle are fastened, when a ship goes by the winde." Hence, a clumsy man may easily have been compared to such a block of wood; cf. OD. boomken a little tree. See Boom a pole.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bumpkin”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details