podunk, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

podunk n.

[Algonquin podunk, a marshy meadow, used esp. by a small tribe of Indians formerly inhabiting an area around the Podunk River in Hartford County, Connecticut. When the word was used (on the grounds of its amusing sound) in a series of letters featuring the supposed small town of Podunk, published in the US in 1846, it gained a greater currency and took on the meaning it has retained ever since. A secondary ety. notes the ‘po-dunk’ croak of a bullfrog, podunker in dial.; thus such towns are out where the bullfrogs can croak undisturbed]

1. (US) a generic term for a small town, also attrib.

1843		N.Y. Mirror 2 Dec. n.p.: She ran away with the needy but handsome P., who was once the terror of the staid mothers and frigid maids in the town of Podunk [R].
1865		O.W. Norton Army Letters (1903) 277: I presume that just about this time of day you are sitting in one of the slips in that ‘Podunk’ or ‘Chachunk’ (what do you call it?) ‘meetin’ house’ [DA].
1878		New Ulm Wkly Rev. (MN) 15 May 1/5: The podunk boys say that he is a figment of the imagination.
1889		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 22 Dec. 10/2: Then the [bunco man’s] confederate comes up and greets Mr Wayback, introducing himself as a nephew of some prominent man in Podunk.
1898		N.Y. Tribune 25 Sept. 53/2: One of the mildest-mannered men on earth is John Smith of Podunk, though that isn’t his name or the name of his town.
1901		Harper’s Weekly 7 Sept. n.p.: He might just as well have been John Smith of Podunk Centre [DA].
[1894		Mirror of Life 14 July 7/4: Mr Gotham: ‘How do you like the city girls?’ Mr. Spodunk: ‘Oh, they're all right enough to look at, but I can’t say I get along with them very well’.
1906		N.Y. Tribune 18 Feb. 25/2: It is easy to make faces as we meet the young countryman with his wife when they come from Podunk to New York.
1913		H.A. Franck Zone Policeman 88 217: The few Americans at the head of departments are chiefly provincial little fellows from small towns whose notions of business are rather those of Podunk, Mass., than of New York.
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 80: Someone asked him what he would do since there was no other job to be had. This was really another challenge and he met it with the reply that Podunk was not the only place to work. He left home to make his bluff good.
1930		G. Milburn ‘The Dealer Gets It All’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 152: And we crushed the can at midnight, and decked an eastbound flyer / That took us from this Podunk back to good old Chi.
1944		C.S. Montanye ‘Death with Music’ in Thrilling Detective Feb. 🌐 Under the dimout regulations Dream Street looked like the main thoroughfare in Podunk.
1957		J. Greenway ‘Aus. Cattle Lingo’ in AS XXXIII:3 169: woop woop, n. phr. A mythical town deepest in the outback; an extremely small, isolated, and lonely ‘Podunk’.
1970		Current Sl. V:3 18: Podunk, n. A Cadet’s home town (US Military Academy).
1983		J. Ciardi A Second Browser’s Dict. 222: Podunk. A generic term for the smallest and most backward of small towns.
1999		Indep. Rev. 7 July 1: South Park is [...] a ‘quiet little red-neck Podunk white-trash mountain town’.
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 101: I’m the only white dude for blocks, and if you’re from Podunk, Montana, or somewhere, that might seem strange.
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.

2. a provincial, a peasant.

2008

T. Piccirilli Fever Kill 69: These podunks would never be able to match the bullet to him.