rube
noun
an unsophisticated person from a rural area; hick.
rube
1 American
[roob]
/ rub /
noun
Informal.
-
rubes
plural
Rube
2
American
[roob]
/ rub /
noun
rube
British
/ ruːb /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rube
1895–1900; generic use of Rube; compare earlier use of Reuben in same sense
Explanation
Rube is an insulting word for a person considered uneducated or uncultured. Your average country bumpkin is also a rube. Calling someone a rube is another way of saying, "You sound like an idiot and you don't know what you're talking about." This word implies a lack of sophistication, manners, education, and culture. Rubes are usually from rural areas, and they’re also known as bumpkins, hayseeds, hicks, yahoos, yokels, and hillbillies. This is an insulting word, so use it cautiously — though it's probably fine to use it jokingly with your friends.
Vocabulary lists containing rube
Inherit the Wind
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Jonathan Demme (1944-2017) Tribute List
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Water for Elephants
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I was correct, I guess; here I am, being paid to write about feeling like a rube.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
Old meaning of hick: hayseed, rube, ill-educated person.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
If you have been investing since your 20s, you’re hardly a rube where your portfolio is concerned.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 12, 2026
Come for the Rube Goldberg machines, leave feeling like a rube.
From Salon ● Feb. 21, 2025
Surely you don't intend to keep that rube as a room-mate!
From Over the Line by Harold Morrow Sherman
This, of course, is an example of a Rube Goldberg machine—an overly complex mechanism that performs a simple task.
From Barron's ● May 14, 2026
The object of Mouse Trap, a board game featuring a Rube Goldberg-style contraption, is to catch plastic mice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025
Next, Doc’s Rube Goldberg-ian breakfast contraption whirs to action with burned toast and a glop of overflowing dog food, implying that he and his dog Einstein have themselves been missing for a while.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2025
He is also a massive global embarrassment, the glaring flaw that proves the entire Rube Goldberg machine is no longer working.
From Salon ● Apr. 27, 2025
I feel like I'm in an elaborate Rube Goldberg contraption that someone else designed.
From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon
I’m not one of those rubes who thinks a job is unimportant just because I can’t make sense of it.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
So you are running too now, dodging and weaving past all the rubes who haven’t yet figured out the score.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2026
Patriotism—even in 1943—strikes Hart as strictly for the rubes; Rodgers counters that “Oklahoma!” is oblique reassurance of “what we’re fighting for.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025
Zaslav knows there are plenty of rubes just like me probably willing to pay.
From The Verge ● Aug. 27, 2022
Once again, a new batch is mixed up with trough water and set out moments before the rubes descend.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
