Chawbacon

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person of rustic or rural origin regarded as unsophisticated or uncouth by urban society
2. A rural dweller perceived as crude and lacking refinement by city standards
3. An inhabitant of the countryside viewed as boorish and unpolished by those of urban sophistication

Etymology: "Chawbacon" is a compound of "chaw," a dialect word for chew, and "bacon," the cured pork that was a staple of rural diets. The pairing gives a picture of a country person chewing on a rasher of salt pork, a far cruder image than the modern meaning suggests. Because the word was put together from two plain English elements, its story lies less in a long borrowing chain than in the everyday foods and speech of the countryside it describes. "Chaw" itself is an older variant of "chew," and the two words share the same sense of working the jaws over food. Pairing it with "bacon" turned a simple act of eating into a label for an entire rural type, the sort of person townspeople imagined as munching coarse food at the farm table rather than dining politely.