Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. unsophisticated, rustic; inarticulate.

1817		Morn. Post (London) 1 Oct. : Suppose now that such a queer couple as these [...] should come over the seas, / And resolve in some clodhopping village to play, / Just when Kemble should chance to be passing that way.
1825		‘West-Country Bumpkin’s Description’ Universal Songster I 230: John Bull was a bumpkin, born and bred / At a clodhopping village in Gloucestershire.
1837		‘Do You See Anything Green About Me’ Sam Weller’s Favorite Song Book 8: A Clod-hopping country clown, / And rough as a badger was I, / When I first arrived up in town.
1839		C.J. Lever Harry Lorrequer 147: I hear they were a set of common clod-hopping wretches.
1843–44		Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 102: A common, paltry, low-minded, clod-hopping, pipe-smoking ale-house.
1847		C. Brontë Jane Eyre II 127: What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a clodhopping messenger would never do.
1853		H. Hayman Pawnbroker’s Daughter 107: The noise [...] brought a lank, clod-hopping boy out from a cottage.
1875		Grange Advance (Red Wing, MN) 8 Sept. 1/5: A sort of clod-hopping farmer, with as little special fuitness for [...] the responsible duties of the auditor’s office, as an ape would have for the duties of a priest.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 Oct. 2/4: Give her one ‘Capting’ with gold buttons and shiny boots, and the rest of her sex are welcome to all the clodhopping ploughmen.
1889		B. Mitford Fire Trumpet I 220: According to the clod-hopping ideas of louts and scullery-maids.
1897		Eve. Star (WA) 20 Feb. 20/4: ‘Whom would you say he resembles?’ ‘I should say like almost any clodhopping-looking farmer’.
1907		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 30 June 17/5: Do you mean to tell me that them infernal little clod-hopping, dough-headed, pup-faced, goose-brained, gate-stealing, rabbit-eared sons of horsethieves have soaked us for that much?
1922		Eve. Star (WA) 21 Feb. 17/2: Bob Shawkey, the clodhopping righthander.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Gus Tomlins’ in Me And Gus (1977) 111: Why didn’t I [...] make the acquaintance of nice, well-bred, cultured people? If I did that, I would begin to realize what a vulgar, clod-hoppy kind of creature I was.
1940		Kent & Sussex Courier 2 Feb. 4/7: A clod-hioopping forgetful professor whose clumsy love-making is a joy to watch.
1951		T. Driberg Best of Both Worlds (diary) 19 May (1953) 39: The thin-skinned speaker sits in agony through the clod-hopping, brick-dropping introduction.
2001		P. McCabe Emerald Germs of Ireland 348: The best party ever. The best in his wildest dreams, especially when it had been held – thrown – by clodhopping idiots.

2. of shoes, clumpy and ungainly.

1871		St Cloud Jrnl (MN) 7 Dec. 1/8: As noiselessly as her great clodhopping boots will permit, Miss Herrick approaches.
1920		Wash. Times (DC) 16 May 13/3: The sergeant took a good look down at the man’s right [...] common clod-hopping boot.
1933		Western Dly Press 9 Feb. 4/6: Brahms succeeds [...] in strutting about with vigorous ability while at the same time still wearing his heaviest and most clod-hopping boots.
1986		S. King It (1987) 804: ‘Sure,’ Henry said, and spat near one of Belch’s clodhopping workshoes.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 30 Jan. 8: The clod-hopping platforms she wore in Cannes.