Noun (1)
the bumpkin was overwhelmed by the city's confusing subway system
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
There are no bumpkins in Hamaguchi’s movie, either—no one who can be reduced to a small-town, salt-of-the-earth cliché.—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 3 May 2024 Working in a glass tower and living in the big city may still be the dream for a bumpkin like Jianlin, but China’s young urbans are starting to head in the opposite direction and seeking more comfortable lifestyles in the countryside.—Mohamed El Aassar, Fortune, 25 Jan. 2024 But there’s a bitter and violent tone of hatred here that’s more reminiscent of 70s thrillers like Straw Dogs or Deliverance, where backwards country bumpkins take out their grievances on innocent newcomers.—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 July 2023 These skirts are chic, fresh and modern, rather than stuffy or country bumpkin.—Laura Fenton, Washington Post, 13 June 2023 Memphis, a guitar-strumming gentle giant with a country bumpkin way — touchingly incarnated by Sheldon D. Brown — is the main target of Waters’ irrational ire.—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 26 May 2023 In Russia, people heard a man who could never finish a sentence or get to the punch line—and whose accent marked him, to the end, as a country bumpkin.—Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 31 Aug. 2022 But as the contrasting energies that joined the Brusteins — Jew and gentile, sophisticate and bumpkin — begin to go haywire, Isaac, otherwise deft and charming, cannot find a way to merge Sidney’s laissez-faire liberalism with his period-typical yet vile sexism.—Jesse Green, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2023 Both of the twins struggled in their Snatch Game performances; Sugar couldn’t nail down any jokes or even mild cracks as professional internet troll Trisha Paytas, while Spice made her Miley Cyrus a cartoonish country bumpkin hitting herself on the head with a sledgehammer.—Stephen Daw, Billboard, 23 Jan. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bumpkin.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
perhaps from Dutch bommekijn small cask, from Middle Dutch, from bomme cask
Noun (2)
probably from Dutch boomken, diminutive of boom tree
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