backwoodser n Also backwooder, backwoodster Cf backwoods jockey n, backwoodsey n
A countrified person; a rustic.
1856 MI Farmer 14.151, I have good neighbors, not such as are commonly called “backwoodsers,” for they all came from some place not long since. 1873 NY Herald (NY) 9 Mar 11/6, [Advt:] Harness for ploughing, farming, teaming, trucking, carting, expressing, contractors, ice companies, stevedores, carryalls, camp meetings, chowderers, picnickers, backwooders, snakers, carervaners [sic], coach business, road, track, park and stable use. 1886 Lippincott’s Mth. Mag. 37.130, In almost every one of the far-apart houses of the village something of the same coarse tumult prevails, for such is the nature of the American backwooder, male and female. 1900 LA Planter & Sugar Manufacturer 25.68, I heard the backwoodster’s “white powder” theory (?) and read the statement of scientists that it was a bacterial growth on the sorghum. c1935 in 1944 ADD nWV, Backwoodster. . . A rustic. Ibid PA, WV, OH, Backwoodser. . . A backwoodsman. . . Reported by one person. 1941 LANE Map 450 (A Rustic) 1 inf, swNH, Backwoodser. 1965–68 DARE (Qu. HH1, Names and nicknames for a rustic or countrified person) Infs DE1, GA44, MS56, NJ3, Backwoodser; MO25, Backwooders; (Qu. II21, When somebody behaves unpleasantly or without manners: “The way he behaves, you’d think he was _____.”) Inf GA44, Backwoodser. 1967 IN Engl. Jrl. Winter 1 IN, Expressions for people from the country who look awkward and out of place in town. . . include backwoodser, backwoodsman, clod. 1968 DARE Tape MO25, He ran into a lot of hardship because lots of these backwooders, as we call ’em, could speak no English. 1973 Allen LAUM 1.349 IA, Backwooder [1 inf]. 2012 DARE File—Internet neOH, There are plenty of backwoodsers in the poorest part of the state that would follow him off a cliff just because he blasts “Obamacare” over and over. 2013 Ibid cnAL, My only comment to the Mathis article is that he needs to remember Christ died for us backwoodsters, too. Ibid CN, Thanks a lot to those backwards backwooders. Have to ruin things for the whole country.