Dictionary

country cousin en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Meanings

1. (informal) An acquaintance from the countryside, who is regarded by city dwellers as being poorly adapted for city life.
   • And how like a country cousin, to come down upon a poor body in this way, without so much as a day’s notice, or asking whether she would be welcome! 1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
   • As in Rome, it is considered very country-cousiny to be seen in the same dress more than twice. 1951 September, Sally Iselin, “I Bought a Dress in Paris”, in The Atlantic:
   • Special commissioners had begun, in the “metropolitan press,” to be the fashion, and the journal in question must have felt it had passed too long for a mere country cousin. 1916 [1896], Henry James, The Figure in the Carpet:
   • CrossCountry is a poor country cousin of the London-centric set of long-distance services. 2022 September 7, Jim Steer, “CrossCountry: the heart of the nation”, in RAIL, number 965, page 30:
   • My fellow students, as politely as they could manage, explained to their up-country cousin why none of these things were possible or desirable. 2020 April 22, “Letters: Open Access: Changes in London”, in RAIL, number 903, page 31:

Forms

Synonyms

lob · cornhusker · provincial · corncob · carl · bucolic · dubbo · hob · rustic · honyock · woolly back · promdi · boor · rube · hunk · culchie · clodhopper · bogtrotter · bogger · hog-rubber · hayseed · country bumpkin · bydlo · hick · country cousin · hobnail · yokel · joskin · churl