as in hick
an awkward or simple person especially from a small town or the country
a lame comedy about the misadventures of yokels in the big city
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Recent Examples of yokel
Florida yokels versus the elite Hollywood movie-star kind of group.
—
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 26 July 2024
Ben’s refusal to stand down for a middle-aged white man seeking to wrest power from him was radical, as was the film’s ending, in which the hero was shot by yokels failing to distinguish him from the zombies previously described as animals.
—Richard Newby, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Oct. 2024
John Elway would sooner crowd surf with the yokels in Oakland’s Black Hole than tank a season.
—Sean Keeler, The Denver Post, 1 Sep. 2024
Their argument could really be rephrased thusly: If stunts got an Oscar, these ignorant yokels will maim and kill themselves breathlessly racing each other for a fancy gold statue.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 30 May 2024
Trujillo reimagines the sentimental yokels of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, as fervent, travel-ready fundamentalists.
—oregonlive, 5 Sep. 2023
And, with perhaps the canniest remark on the design’s yokel-ness, someone else claimed to have seen the new logo wandering around Rockefeller Center asking for the Christmas tree.
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2023
The team brings up a yokel from the minor leagues, Shane (Michael Oberholtzer), to relieve him, and Shane’s gruesome, heartfelt (and English-language) bigotry finally shakes the team to its roots.
—Helen Shaw, Vulture, 4 Apr. 2022
The first comic, Charles F. Browne, hit the lecture circuit in 1861 and adopted the pseudonymous persona of a country yokel named Artemus Ward.
—Harry Bruinius, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Nov. 2021
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 26 July 2024
Ben’s refusal to stand down for a middle-aged white man seeking to wrest power from him was radical, as was the film’s ending, in which the hero was shot by yokels failing to distinguish him from the zombies previously described as animals.
—Richard Newby, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Oct. 2024
John Elway would sooner crowd surf with the yokels in Oakland’s Black Hole than tank a season.
—Sean Keeler, The Denver Post, 1 Sep. 2024
Their argument could really be rephrased thusly: If stunts got an Oscar, these ignorant yokels will maim and kill themselves breathlessly racing each other for a fancy gold statue.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 30 May 2024
Trujillo reimagines the sentimental yokels of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, as fervent, travel-ready fundamentalists.
—oregonlive, 5 Sep. 2023
And, with perhaps the canniest remark on the design’s yokel-ness, someone else claimed to have seen the new logo wandering around Rockefeller Center asking for the Christmas tree.
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2023
The team brings up a yokel from the minor leagues, Shane (Michael Oberholtzer), to relieve him, and Shane’s gruesome, heartfelt (and English-language) bigotry finally shakes the team to its roots.
—Helen Shaw, Vulture, 4 Apr. 2022
The first comic, Charles F. Browne, hit the lecture circuit in 1861 and adopted the pseudonymous persona of a country yokel named Artemus Ward.
—Harry Bruinius, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Nov. 2021
Recent Examples of Synonyms for yokel
Noun
-
In first grade, when a teacher called him a hick, Ciotti threw an inkwell at her.—
D. T. Max,
The New Yorker,
23 Sep. 2024
-
In the special, taped at Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, Kober brings audiences together with stories about dealing with hometown hicks, unforgiving fruit flies and California candy cartels.—
Matt Grobar,
Deadline,
25 June 2024
Noun
-
He was born in 1915 into a poor but educated peasant family in Hunan Province.—
Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Affairs,
1 Jan. 2025
-
Lucio has dedicated his life to re-invigorating ancestral culture and helping peasants overcome such modern challenges as industrial agriculture, pollution, and urban growth encroaching on their land.—
Jeanne Malle,
airmail.news,
24 Aug. 2024
Noun
-
Mantle was the voluble hayseed from Oklahoma who could hit anything but was corrupted by the big city, and wound up undone by alcohol and knee injuries.—
Adam Gopnik,
The New Yorker,
21 June 2024
-
Today, the variety shows’ wise-clown hayseeds (overalls, prosthetic teeth, silly hats, no shoes) are the ones who get all the good lines, whose material is distinctive in its political sensibility and cultural hobbyhorses.—
Rafil Kroll-Zaidi,
Harper's Magazine,
30 Mar. 2024
Noun
-
Carter, perhaps the most decent man to ever occupy the Oval Office, was long written off as a country bumpkin, one who perhaps unsurprisingly left office as a one-term anomaly.—
Philip Elliott,
TIME,
9 Jan. 2025
-
Emily in Paris On Location: Hotel Plaza Athénée Paris Rediscover Paris as Chicago bumpkin Emily (played by Lily Collins) moves there for a job and takes you to places like Galeries Lafayette, Galerie-Musee Baccarat and Hotel Plaza Athénée Paris.—
Forbes Travel Guide,
Forbes,
14 Sep. 2024
Noun
-
This removed one of the last obstacles preventing poor provincials from governing the empire.—
Jeffrey E. Schulman / Made by History,
TIME,
20 Dec. 2024
-
While early imperial aristocrats saw provincials as subject nations with their own cultures, their working-class replacements considered Romans a single people and expected all to share the same values.—
Jeffrey E. Schulman / Made by History,
TIME,
20 Dec. 2024
Noun
-
Well, the rubes just elected Donald Trump president.—
Chris Roemer,
Baltimore Sun,
8 Nov. 2024
-
That’s easy: a rube, chump, or mark, whose naive optimism sets them up for betrayal.—
Jamil Zaki,
TIME,
3 Sep. 2024
Noun
-
The story features Mauro, a clown who dreams of a carnival where a parade of revelers are celebrating his life.—
Joanne Shurvell,
Forbes,
6 Jan. 2025
-
Both movies feature a killer clown, but while Joaquin Phoenix’s grinning menace suffers from delusions of grandeur and an unspecified mental illness, the hideous ghoul from hell in Terrifier known as Art hacks away at his victims with no discernible motivation beyond the grisly acts themselves.—
Eric Kohn,
The Hollywood Reporter,
6 Jan. 2025
Thesaurus Entries Near yokel
Cite this Entry
“Yokel.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/yokel. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
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