yokel
Americannoun
-
yokels
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of yokel
First recorded in 1805–15; origin uncertain
Explanation
Yokel is a disparaging name for someone from a small town or the countryside. To call someone a yokel is to imply that they are unsophisticated, uneducated, and probably dim-witted. Before the age of internet and television, if you grew up in a small town or on a farm, you probably wouldn’t have known about the latest fashions of Paris and Milan or the best restaurants in New York. Even now, if you live in a remote place, you may have a somewhat provincial understanding of the world. If so, when you visit the Big City an unkind “city slicker” may call you a yokel.
Vocabulary lists containing yokel
100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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"The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner's Prologue
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The Odyssey
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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:
In a hilarious illustration of this disconnect, Ms. Hansen writes of a yokel who poured “twenty bags of soil” on the balcony of his Karagümrük apartment to plant beans, tomatoes and peppers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026
John Noakes called her awful: "She was a bully who treated me like some country yokel from Yorkshire. I couldn't abide her."
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2025
"Ted Lasso" was introduced as a the story of a out-of-place Kansas yokel in Britain, with Jason Sudeikis playing Ted as the kind of man aware of the assumptions people will make about him.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2021
“Hilter” plans to run for a minor office in a local election and gives a speech from a balcony to an audience of three children and one yokel with a straw hat.
From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2019
Dawn Madden did a spazzo yokel voice at the tractor.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
But why don’t the rest of us yokels get schlepped around by private jets when we’re in grave danger?
From Slate ● Sep. 2, 2023
Baltz, 42, plays a variety of Midwestern yokels on the improv comedy podcast “Comedy Bang! Bang!” — like Randy Snutz, an amalgamation of dudes he grew up around in the far-flung suburbs of Chicago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 9, 2023
And the yokels behind him are no help, either: one of them has a grain of sand stuck in his eye.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 1, 2019
He’s a cautionary tale of what happens to average yokels who fool themselves into thinking they’re ready to take up residence among the sharks.
From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2019
After all, thought Parliament, the Americans were yokels and farmers—not political thinkers.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
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.
