redneck

redneck

English

Etymology

Bahuvrīhi compound of red +‎ neck. Compare rooinek. The term originally characterized farmers that had a red neck, caused by sunburn from long hours working in the fields.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈɹɛdnɛk/
  • Audio (General Australian):(file)

Noun

redneck (plural rednecks)

  1. (slang, US, usually derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur) A poor, rural, usually white, person from the Southern United States or parts of the Midwest and Northeast, especially one whose beliefs are seen as unsophisticated and backward; sometimes with additional connotations of being bigoted.
  2. (by extension, derogatory) yokel, hick, country bumpkin
    Synonyms: (Australia) bogan, cracker, hick, hillbilly, peckerwood, white trash; see also Thesaurus:chav, Thesaurus:country bumpkin
    • 1989, “Fight the Power”, in Fear of a Black Planet, performed by Public Enemy:
      Sample a look back you look and find / Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check
  3. (historical, slang, US) Any of the miners who wore red bandanas for identification during the West Virginia mine war of 1921.[1][2]
  4. (historical, slang, US) A member of a certain Baltimore street gang, active in 1859.[3]
  5. (UK, archaic, 19th and 20th centuries, religious slur) A Roman Catholic.[4]

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “West Virginia Division of Culture and History”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎[1], 30 March 2008 (last accessed), archived from the original on 4 June 2013
  2. ^ Huber, Patrick (2006), “Red Necks and Red Bandanas: Appalachian Coal Miners and the Coloring of Union Identity, 1912–1936”, in Western Folklore (in American English), volume 69, number 1/2, pages 195–210: “Thus, the epithet redneck, in a coal mining context, usually referred to the red bandanas that striking miners sometimes wore knotted about their necks and not to sunburned necks”
  3. ^ The New York Times‎[2] (in American English), New York City, New York, United States, 3 November 1859, page 4
  4. ^ The Raleigh Register‎[3] (in American English), Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, 19 March 1841, page 2
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