Did you
know?

boondocks (also boonies)
colloquial

- wild and dense brush; jungle.

- rural country; the backwoods.

(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition)


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WORD ORIGIN

BOONDOCKS is an American adaptation of a Tagalog word for mountain (bundok) made by American servicemen in the Philippines in the 1920s. It has become a humorous and disparaging word for the wilderness, the backcountry, or "the sticks".

The BOONIES is a clipped form of the word, still slang, but in such wide use that it has become conversational. BOONDOCKERS is a term for the heavy hiking shoes soldiers and backpackers wear.

BOONDOCKS first came into general public knowledge during an investigation of harsh methods of training employed by some United States Marine Corp instructors at Camp Lejune in North Carolina. According to reports then current, recruits were ordered on night marches into the BOONDOCKS, including swamp areas where at least one recruit drowned.

sources: Columbia Guide to Standard American English, Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins

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SYNONYMS

back of beyond, backwoods, boonies, godforsaken place, Hicksville, hinterland, in the middle of nowhere, off the beaten track, outback, the sticks, wilderness

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PRACTICE OWAD TODAY
Say something like:

"We’ll have to get a rental car. The meeting is at a hotel in the BOONDOCKS."