as in hick
an awkward or simple person especially from a small town or the country
rural voters were tired of being treated as rubes by state officials, who showed interest in them only at election time
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of rube
That’s easy: a rube, chump, or mark, whose naive optimism sets them up for betrayal.
—
Jamil Zaki, TIME, 3 Sep. 2024
Sometimes, the film’s examination of excess can simply be excessive, but The Wolf of Wall Street is hypnotizing — and a damning condemnation of us poor rubes.
—Will Leitch, Vulture, 8 Mar. 2024
Play your cards right and a meal can be made with minimal effort; just don’t be the rube who stalks the kitchen door.
—Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Mar. 2024
For a yutz like me, a business rube, what’s some advice about how to win a negotiation?
—David Marchese David Marchese Photograph By Mamadi Doumbouya, New York Times, 10 Nov. 2023
See All Example Sentences for rube
Jamil Zaki, TIME, 3 Sep. 2024
Sometimes, the film’s examination of excess can simply be excessive, but The Wolf of Wall Street is hypnotizing — and a damning condemnation of us poor rubes.
—Will Leitch, Vulture, 8 Mar. 2024
Play your cards right and a meal can be made with minimal effort; just don’t be the rube who stalks the kitchen door.
—Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Mar. 2024
For a yutz like me, a business rube, what’s some advice about how to win a negotiation?
—David Marchese David Marchese Photograph By Mamadi Doumbouya, New York Times, 10 Nov. 2023
See All Example Sentences for rube
Recent Examples of Synonyms for rube
Noun
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Sorrentino may also be exorcising some conflicting feelings about his birthplace, which is portrayed as a vulgar, crude place populated by crooks and hicks and photographed like its paradise.—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
7 Feb. 2025
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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
Noun
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Going to the Ron Burgundy–Ricky Bobby idiot well one time too many, Ferrell plays Cam Brady, a lazy, cynical longtime congressman running against a local bumpkin (Galifianakis).—
Tim Grierson,
Vulture,
4 Feb. 2025
-
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
Noun
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Caro Stowell of Thomasville was dressed up like a clown.—
Sarah D. Wire,
USA Today,
5 Apr. 2025
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The White Lotus isn’t the only piece of content that’s down to clown with sibling-on-sibling action!—
Jason P. Frank,
Vulture,
2 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Florida yokels versus the elite Hollywood movie-star kind of group.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
26 July 2024
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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
Noun
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Baby Billy’s first full-frontal scene is more a testament to Walton Goggins’s incredible hayseed bravado in the rule.—
Scott Tobias,
Vulture,
31 Mar. 2025
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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
Noun
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In his lecture at the Traditions festival, Dugin moved from peasants to a survey of modern Russian intellectual history.—
James Verini,
The New Yorker,
1 Mar. 2025
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This cotton peasant blouse may be simple, but it’s also guaranteed to become one of the most versatile pieces in your closet.—
Merrell Readman,
Travel + Leisure,
19 Mar. 2025
Noun
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This removed one of the last obstacles preventing poor provincials from governing the empire.—
Jeffrey E. Schulman / Made by History,
TIME,
20 Dec. 2024
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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
Cite this Entry
“Rube.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rube. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025.
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