Bumpkin

Bumpkin
Bumpkin Bump"kin, n. [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.] An awkward, heavy country fellow; a clown; a country lout. ``Bashful country bumpkins.'' --W. Irving. [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.

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  • bumpkin — awkward country fellow, 1560s, probably from M.Du. bommekijn little barrel, dim. of boom tree. Apparently, though itself Dutch, it began as a derogatory reference to Dutch people as short and dumpy …   Etymology dictionary

  • bumpkin — hick, yokel, rube, clodhopper, clown, lout, *boor, churl …   New Dictionary of Synonyms

  • bumpkin — ► NOUN ▪ an unsophisticated person from the countryside. ORIGIN perhaps from Dutch boomken little tree or earlier bommekijn little barrel , denoting a dumpy person …   English terms dictionary

  • bumpkin — [bump′kin] n. [prob. < Du boomkin, short tree, dim. of boom, tree] 1. a short boom projecting from a sailing ship, used as in securing a stay or brace 2. [prob. < MDu bommekijn, small cask < bomme, a cask + kijn, dim. suffix] an awkward… …   English World dictionary

  • bumpkin — n. a country bumpkin * * * [ bʌmpkɪn] a country bumpkin …   Combinatory dictionary

  • bumpkin — [16] Originally, bumpkin seems to have been a humorously disparaging epithet for a Dutch person: in the first known record of the word, in Peter Levins’s Dictionary of English and Latin words 1570, it is glossed batavus (Batavia was the name of… …   The Hutchinson dictionary of word origins

  • bumpkin — UK [ˈbʌmpkɪn] / US noun [countable] Word forms bumpkin : singular bumpkin plural bumpkins an insulting word for someone who lives in the country. This word is used by people who think that people from the country are not intelligent or educated …   English dictionary

  • bumpkin — [16] Originally, bumpkin seems to have been a humorously disparaging epithet for a Dutch person: in the first known record of the word, in Peter Levins’s Dictionary of English and Latin words 1570, it is glossed batavus (Batavia was the name of… …   Word origins

  • bumpkin — noun Bumpkin is used after these nouns: ↑country …   Collocations dictionary

  • bumpkin — Synonyms and related words: boor, bucolic, clod, clodhopper, clown, country bumpkin, farmer, gawk, gawky, hayseed, hick, hillbilly, looby, lout, lubber, lummox, oaf, provincial, rube, rustic, yokel …   Moby Thesaurus

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