Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. UK Und.) a clumsy oaf, a boor, a dull-witted peasant.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1722		S. Centlivre Artifice Act III: A Plate, Blockhead! a Plate! did you ever see a Dog brought on a Plate, Clod-hopper?
1731		Caledonian Mercury 2 Feb. 2/1: ‘Why Sure, My Dear, you would not throw away our Daughter on such a Clodhopper’.
1788		J. O’Keeffe Farmer 19: Me sport a Toe among such Clodhoppers!
1795		Sporting Mag. June VI 152/1: A neighbouring clodhopper led her to the altar, nothing loth.
1806		T.S. Surr Winter in London I 176: The best looking fellow I’ve seen in these parts: – country cut a little; but he’s something above the clodhoppers one sees about this place.
1824		Miss Mitford Village Ser. I. (1863) 136: He turned his clowns into gentlemen, and their brother clod-hoppers laughed at them, and they were ashamed.
1838		W. Howitt Rural Life of England I 157: The clodhopper, the chopstick, the hawbuck, the hind, the Johnny-raw, or by whatever name, in whatever district he may be called, is everywhere the same.
1841		Comic Almanack June 266: The village is out, the village is out, / Peasant and clodhopper, fool and flout.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend I 34: I heard one of your clodhoppers say the other day, ‘The squire is a good gentleman’.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 15 May 3/2: They commenced what they culled ‘chaffing’ the amorous old clodhopper, who took their sarcasms with anything but a good grace.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 363: The junior member of this iniquitous firm was despatched into the provinces to try his hand on the ‘clodhoppers and johnny raws,’ as Monsieur Vatrin nicknamed every individual not born within ten miles of the metropolis.
1864		‘Edmund Kirke’ Down in Tennessee 68: This idea of universal suffrage – making a small sovereign of every ignorant clophopper [...] is played out.
1866		Pickens Sentinel 9 Apr. 6/5: Some people had an idea that mountain people were nothing but ‘blockheads and clodhoppers’.
1866		Dundee Courier 18 Aug. 3/2: A very picturesque name for a very clodhopping concern.
1877		J. Greenwood Dick Temple III 242: I will never marry a clodhopper. I will marry a gentleman.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 Jan. 14/1: ‘Send Lize down to watch the clodhoppers and have her pour a little more of the “stuff” down ’em’.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Jan. 5/4: Now mount your musty pulpit – thump, / And muddle fat clod-hoppers, / And let some long-eared booby ‘hump’ / The plate about for coppers.
1890		B.L. Farjeon Mystery of M. Felix III 61: I’d take Old Nick himself in, much less Dr. Peterssen and a parcel of clodhoppers.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 18: Clod Hopper, a country clown.
1896		‘Frederick Benton Williams’ (H.E. Hamblen) On Many Seas 350: I never thoroughly appreciated the meaning of the words, boor, chaw-bacon, clod-hopper, until I saw these Gloucestershire Britons.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Mar. 25/1: The A.N.A. dramatic competition in Melbourne was not wholly vain. Although each competing party had at least one shocking clodhopper in its bill the general work was interesting, and one really clever little lady came to light.
1903		W.E.B. Du Bois ‘Of Alender Crummell’ in Souls of Black Folks (1994) 134: When clodhoppers and peasants [...] sometimes— Negroes, became throbbing souls.
1908		D.G. Phillips Susan Lenox I 222: Not the clodhoppers and roustabouts that come to see us.
1912		H.S. Truman letter 26 Nov. in Ferrell Dear Bess (1983) 105: I guess I’ll be a clodhopper and pay the grafters.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 207: clod-hopper, -crusher, country bumpkin. ‘I wouldn’t be seen going down our alley with that clod-hopper.’.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 295: A race of clodhoppers!
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 89: I don’t know what the country’s coming to, with these Scandahoofian clodhoppers demanding every cent you can save.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 269: A row of forlorn little houses [...] in which lived the grocer, the baker, the shoemaker, the butcher, etc. — all imbecilic-looking clodhoppers.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl. §391.3: rustic, bumpkin, clodhopper.
1943		I. Wolfert Tucker’s People (1944) 38: What kind of way is this, like a clodhopper!
1950		B. Spicer Blues for the Prince (1989) 107: Has this ofay clodhopper been...
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 75: Redmond was marvellous, not just a clodhopper like most of the fellas in the room.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 273: He personally viewed everyone out of prison as peapickers, hoosiers, hayseeds, or clodhoppers, chumps who rode a bicycle or carried their lunch.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 95: You’re a star, Murphy, you Irish clodhopper.
2002		D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 11: The smackdaddies and the boozebabies, the clodhoppers and the pillpoppers.
2011		N. Johnson ‘Corpse by Any Other Name’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] Grab some clodhopper and kill him and bring me his lifeless piece-of-shit corpse.

2. (US) a rustic, a farmer.

1873		N.Y. Times 7 Aug. n.p.: The Trumans . . . were country people—‘clodhoppers’ [R].
1900		Marvel XIII:322 Jan. 10: I was thinking you were a cut or two above the mere clodhopper.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Defeat of the City’ in Voice of the City (1915) 92: He played the yokel, the humorous clodhopper.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 573: clod-hopper, n. A rustic; a hayseed.
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 26: He gave the man – a stupid clodhopper, but honest and attached – instructions.
1926		B.Q. Morgan ‘Simile and Metaphor in American Speech’ in AS I:5 273: ‘Hay seed’ or ‘clod-hopper’ for farmer.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 83: Hedgers and ditchers, and carriers, and coachmen, and clodhoppers with clay on their boots and millers’ men.
1929		E. Caldwell Bastard (1963) 13: Perhaps his father was a stake-driver, [...] maybe a red-necked clod hopper.
1931		W. Noble Burns One-Way Ride 138: The look of a stolid, rough-hewn clodhopper who might have lived peacefully all his life in a hut on the slopes of Stromboli.
1943		C. McCullers Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1986) 145: Wore those long, baggy sweaters and clodhopper shoes and a man’s hat.
1950		L. O’Flaherty Insurrection 37: I’m not afraid of a clodhopper like you.
1957		H.B. Allen ‘Pejorative Terms for Midwest Farmers’ in AS XXXIII:4 265: [...] clodhopper.
1969		P. Boyle All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 115: Oh, a grisly crowd. Mostly country clod-hoppers.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 74: A lanky tough-grained stick of a man with big hands and clodhopper feet [...] He had been a farmer all his life.
1979		S. King Dead Zone (1980) 6: He hated these ugly farm dogs [...] they told you something about their masters as well. ‘Fucking bunch of clodhoppers,’ he said under his breath.
1982		P. Bailey An Eng. Madam 138: The girls didn’t want to know you if you were a clodhopper.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 14: Agricultural labourers and small farmers—i.e., apple-knockers, clodhoppers, goober grabbers, nesters, peasants, rednecks.
1991		J.B. Keane Love Bites and Other Stories 80: I too was called a hick by clodhoppers who forsook the country for the metropolis.

3. (also clodskipper) a heavy work shoe, also attrib. ; cit. 1948 refers to a walking shoe.

1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) VIII 1605: How handsome the little leg now looked compared with it in clod hoppers and woollen stockings.
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 245: Durn her cartilaginous old clod-skippers! I wish they’d stumble her over something and break her wizened old neck!
1897–9		H. Lawson ‘The Bull-Run Style’ in Roderick (1972) 287: Look at the marks of your great clod-hoppers!
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 Nov. 32/2: I rolled up there an’ then, an’ swum that billabong at midnight; an’ the larst I saw of Professor De Quinlan was him in his shirt an’ clodhoppers, chasin’ an escaped beetle with a slush-lamp.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘A Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III viii 573: clod-hopper, n. A coarse kind of shoe.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 191: It sounded like the heavy clodhoppers of a cop.
1934		V.G. Burns Female Convict (1960) 115: Do you think you could buy me a pair of shoes? These clodhoppers are terrible!
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 983: A swirling flight of little white butterflies went up right from under his black clodhoppers.
1948		J. Archibald ‘Photo Finish for a Dame’ in Popular Detective Mar. 🌐 The management is holding a feminine clodhopper size six and a half B.
1955		E. Hoagland Cat Man 144: Bible’s boots were crossed a few inches to the left of Fiddler’s head, one heel gouged into the ground; big clodhopper boots.
1958		A. Sillitoe Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 8: Watch what yer doin’, can’t yer? Yo’ an’ yer bloody grett clod-’oppers.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 126: So the Negro’s supposed to lie down and let the paddy climb up on his chest with his clodhoppers just so’s he can feel three or four inches taller standing on another man’s ribs.
1977		(con. 1908) J. Monaghan Schoolboy, Cowboy, Mexican Spy 40: Whatja pay for them clodhoppers?
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 328: His platform clodhoppers.
1984		W. Diehl Hooligans (2003) 219: A faded cotton shirt, clodhopper boots.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Travel 27 June 1: A pair of flashy Italian boots here, worn English clodhoppers there.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 247: She dropped her cigarette butt and ground it out with a clodhopper.

4. a street dancer, begging for cash.

1933

‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 176: These (omitting the ones that everyone knows) are some of the cant words now used in London: [...] A clodhopper – a street dancer.

5. a large and clumsy foot.

1968

G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 208: Howell, get up in the air off your big clodhoppers and win us some ball in the line-out.

6. a police officer [rhy. sl. = copper n. (3)].

1969		S.T. Kendall Up the Frog.
1992		R. Puxley Cockney Rabbit.