one-horse town

1. A small and unimportant place, as in Ours was just a one-horse town until the nuclear plant was built. This expression, first recorded in 1857, presumably alluded to a town so small that a single horse would suffice for its transportation needs.

Example Sentences

He was born in Charkhari, a state in British India, in what he describes as a "one-horse town".

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As a child in a "one-horse town in South Carolina," Smalls was drawn to Shakespeare and prose, spending time in his mother’s rose garden, despite the skepticism of those around him.

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She was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush, which she described in her 1973 song "Nutbush City Limits" as a "quiet little old community, a one-horse town."

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Undeterred, they swiftly wrote a new opening, even swapping Austin for Boston to represent her home state: “Baby, what do you say we just get lost? Leave this one-horse town like two rebels without a cause / I’ve got people in Boston, ain’t your daddy still in De Moines?”

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The problem with living in a one-horse town like Chokecherry is you can’t get away with anything.

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