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clodhopper

[klod-hop-er]
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noun
  1. a clumsy boor; rustic; bumpkin.
  2. clodhoppers, strong, heavy shoes.
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Origin of clodhopper

1680–90; clod + hopper, modeled on grasshopper

Synonyms

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1. hick, yokel, lout, hayseed, lummox.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for clodhopper

Historical Examples

  • She did not like to think Father a clodhopper; and I am sure he is not.

    Out in the Forty-Five

    Emily Sarah Holt

  • What if she should think me a clown and a clodhopper, as Tom Tracy does?

    Gretchen

    Mary J. Holmes

  • The clodhopper had got her, and I had been only toiling in his service!

    Sheppard Lee, Vol. I (of 2)

    Robert Montgomery Bird

  • You think you are the man of talent and I am the clodhopper.

  • His clodhopper of a father sold firewood to the sweet mother of me!

    The Wolf Cub

    Patrick Casey

British Dictionary definitions for clodhopper

clodhopper

noun informal
  1. a clumsy person; lout
  2. (usually plural) a large heavy shoe or boot
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Derived Formsclodhopping, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for clodhopper

n.

1690s, slang, "one who works on plowed land, a rustic," from clod (n.) + agent noun from hop (v.). Cf. in a similar sense clod-breaker, clod-crusher; in this word perhaps a play on grasshopper. Sense extended by 1836 to the shoes worn by such workers.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper