rube

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

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of rube 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 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 See All Example Sentences for rube
Recent Examples of Synonyms for rube
Noun
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Elves, insectoids, reptilians, aliens, gods, and clowns are all common.
    Andy Greenberg, Wired News, 22 May 2025
  • Fans can also look forward to performances by the iconic Silver Spurs Quadrille, the adorable antics of kids competing in Mutton Bustin’, and plenty of laughs courtesy of the ever-entertaining rodeo clowns.
    Joe Rassel, The Orlando Sentinel, 21 May 2025
Noun
  • Florida yokels versus the elite Hollywood movie-star kind of group.
    Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 21 May 2025
  • Much of the show's cast will be forever remembered as TV's favorite millionaire yokels, but The Beverly Hillbillies certainly didn't mark the end of their careers.
    John Russell, People.com, 11 May 2025
Noun
  • 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
  • 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
  • Part 2: fifteen years later, while fleeing Petrograd, Nabokov’s father is accosted on a bridge by a gray-bearded peasant, who asks for a light and proves to be Kuropatkin in disguise.
    Elif Batuman, New Yorker, 1 June 2025
  • By 1917 in Russia, housewives were marching in city streets to protest a lack of food, peasants were seizing land, and many Russians saw the czarist government as irrelevant, even treasonous.
    Margaret MacMillan, The Atlantic, 30 Apr. 2025
Noun
  • Sanders is a Catholic priest and former Augustinian provincial in California and lives in the Augustinian community in North Park.
    Gary Sanders, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 May 2025
  • The same year, he was appointed as a provincial for the order.
    Caitlin McFall, FOXNews.com, 21 Apr. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Rube.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rube. Accessed 6 Jun. 2025.

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