yokel
a simple person who lives in a rural area
TRANSLATION
yokel = Tölpel, Bauerntölpel, Bauerntrampel, Landei --- GOOGLE INDEX yokel: approximately 1,400,000 hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
I walked through the streets of East Beirut on a Saturday evening, and felt like a YOKEL suddenly transplanted to a cosmopolis. Sushi bars and tapas bars, and a café where girls with glitter around their eyes were deep in this month's copy of Vanity Fair…
(Financial Times)
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Racially, (U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Thomas began with two handicaps. Not only was he a black boy in the segregated South; he was part of an isolated Creole-speaking community, the Geechees (or Gullahs), who were dismissed as YOKELS by other blacks.
(The Economist)
(Financial Times)
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Racially, (U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Thomas began with two handicaps. Not only was he a black boy in the segregated South; he was part of an isolated Creole-speaking community, the Geechees (or Gullahs), who were dismissed as YOKELS by other blacks.
(The Economist)
Did you
know?
yokel
noun, slang
- an unsophisticated country person
(Compact Oxford English Dictionary)
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WORD ORIGIN
The origin of yokel, a sometimes negative and sometimes humorous way of describing an unsophisticated person who lives in a rural area, is unknown. It may have been borrowed from the German Jokel, a derogatory name for a farmer. It might also stem from yoke, which among other things is a crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen or other draft animals working together. Or it may simply be a mispronunciation of "local."
In England, yokels are often depicted as wearing the old West Country farmhand's dress of straw hat and white smock, chewing or sucking a piece of straw and carrying a pitchfork or rake. Apart from yokel, English has many other creative ways to characterise unsophisticated people who live in the country:
bumpkin - This word might stem from the Dutch bommekijn, a humorous term for a little barrel.
clodhopper - Refers to heavy, leather-soled shoes worn by farmers.
hayseed - This is literally grass seed shaken out of hay.
hick - According to a popular etymology, this derives from the nickname "Old Hickory" for Andrew Jackson, one of the first Presidents of the United States to come from a rural area. This nickname suggested that Jackson was tough and enduring like an old hickory tree.
oaf - Scandinavian in origin.
yahoo (not be confused with the online company Yahoo!) - This derives from yahoo, a member of a race of savage and cruel creatures in Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels.
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"I like country pubs and chatting to the yokels."
noun, slang
- an unsophisticated country person
(Compact Oxford English Dictionary)
---
WORD ORIGIN
The origin of yokel, a sometimes negative and sometimes humorous way of describing an unsophisticated person who lives in a rural area, is unknown. It may have been borrowed from the German Jokel, a derogatory name for a farmer. It might also stem from yoke, which among other things is a crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen or other draft animals working together. Or it may simply be a mispronunciation of "local."
In England, yokels are often depicted as wearing the old West Country farmhand's dress of straw hat and white smock, chewing or sucking a piece of straw and carrying a pitchfork or rake. Apart from yokel, English has many other creative ways to characterise unsophisticated people who live in the country:
bumpkin - This word might stem from the Dutch bommekijn, a humorous term for a little barrel.
clodhopper - Refers to heavy, leather-soled shoes worn by farmers.
hayseed - This is literally grass seed shaken out of hay.
hick - According to a popular etymology, this derives from the nickname "Old Hickory" for Andrew Jackson, one of the first Presidents of the United States to come from a rural area. This nickname suggested that Jackson was tough and enduring like an old hickory tree.
oaf - Scandinavian in origin.
yahoo (not be confused with the online company Yahoo!) - This derives from yahoo, a member of a race of savage and cruel creatures in Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels.
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"I like country pubs and chatting to the yokels."
