yokel

Etymology

1812, possibly from dialectal German Jokel, diminutive of Jakob, cf. Yankee (“little John”) and jacquerie (“peasant uprising”). Alternatively, from dialectal English yokel (“woodpecker”).

noun

1. (derogatory) A person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated and/or naive.
   They love the scenery near their summer home, but have no desire to mix with the local yokels.
   He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion. 1895, Stephen Crane, chapter 8, in The Red Badge of Courage, New York: Appleton, page 88
   I went to New York and bought myself a secondhand stretch limousine twenty-eight feet long, calculated to reduce the most blasé country-club sophisticates to bug-eyed yokels. 1985, Peter De Vries, chapter 6, in The Prick of Noon, Penguin, page 119
   1993, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy, London: Phoenix, 1994, Chapter 8.6, p. 560, ‘You may think that because you live in Brahmpur you have seen the world―or more of the world than we poor yokels see. But some of us yokels have also seen the world―and not just the world of Brahmpur, but of Bombay. […] ’