clodhopper

English

Etymology

Compound of clod +‎ hopper (agentive form of the verb hop). Perhaps affected by analogy with grasshopper. Attested in the sense of "peasant" since the seventeenth century; the extended sense of "boot" or "shoe" dates from the nineteenth century.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈklɑdˌhɑpɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈklɒdˌhɒpə/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

clodhopper (plural clodhoppers)

2. A strong shoe for heavy-duty use, a boot.
   • 1830, Margaret Hundy, “First Epistle from Mrs. Margaret Hundy”, in The Lady's Magazine:

     ...who had got on his "hill shoes," as he calls a pair of clodhoppers as thick as a ploughman's, and stuck round with nails.

4. (US) Any shoe construed (within a particular context) as ungainly.
   • 1959, Claude F. Koch, A Matter of Family:

     We had to walk slow because of his wooden clod-hoppers, and that was the way I wanted it now

5. (military slang) United States Navy ankle length work shoes, distinct from dress shoes or combat boots.
   • 1943 August 16, “Senators go global: Five will fly to all fronts”, in LIFE Magazine:

     Smiling Jim Mead of New York tries on his GI clodhopper boots. He decided to return them "because we couldn't make any altitude with those aboard."

7. A peasant or yokel.
   • 1719, René Le Bossu, translated by Pierre François le Courayer and Peter Anthony Motteux, Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the Epick Poem, J. Knapton and H. Clements, →OCLC, page 332:

     […] now a book is no greater rarity than bacon and greens in Virginia; and the clodhopper of this country returns from his daily labours to a book […]

   • 1869, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, “ch. 14”, in Lorna Doone:

     'Nephew Jack,' he cried, looking at me when I was thinking what to say, and finding only emptiness, 'you are a heavy lout, sir; a bumpkin, a clodhopper; and I shall leave you nothing, unless it be my boots to grease.'

9. (UK) A clumsy or foolish person.
   • 1826 August, P.H. Clias, “Gymnastics”, in Blackwood's Magazine, volume XX, number CXV:

     All guess-work exploits shrivel up a good yard, or sometimes two, when brought to the measure, and the champion of the county dwindles into a clumsy clod-hopper.

11. Wheatear: any of various passerine birds.
    • 1834, Robert Mudie, The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands, volume 1:

      ...and as the birds then begin to resort to the downs and open commons, the "fallow-chat," "wheat-ear," and "clodhopper," are not unappropriate names.

Synonyms

• clodknocker

Related terms

• clodhopperish

Translations

strong, heavy shoe

• French: écrase-merde (fr) f
• Hungarian: bakancs (hu)
• Latin: pērō m
• Spanish: zapatón m

clumsy person

• German: Bauerntölpel (de) m, (archaic) Scharrhans m
• Irish: cábóg f
• Spanish: ganso (es) m, patoso m (Spain), paleto (es) m
• Turkish: kıro (tr)

See also

• (shoe construed as ungainly): hooves (a person's feet construed as big, clumsy, and intrusive)