Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(mainly US) used to emphasize a particular characteristic, e.g. dragsville, very boring; sticksville, very rural or suburban.

[1699		‘The Country-Man’s Ramble through Bartholomew Fair’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy I 56: I ask’d them a loud, What Country little Volk they were? / A cross brat answered me Che were Cuckold-shire].
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 137: It don’t seem to them as if Squashville, or Punkinville, or Lumbertown was right represented.
1859		Harper’s Mag. Sept. 572/2: The aforesaid battery had been consummated at a doggery at Niggerville, now called Washington [in the State of Louisiana] near the town of Opelousas.
1863		Army Police Record in Annals of the Army of the Cumberland 602: He declared the true policy to be to attack the city, and, if necessary, ‘to make Nashville ash-ville.’.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890) 16: Grassville. The country.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Sept. 14/: The Chicagos made no mistake when they engaged voting Flynn, as be is a dandy from Dunriyville.
1902		Copper Era (Clifton, AZ) 9 Jan. 1/3: Informed by one of the natives that she was a killer from Killerville, and had six or seven notches on her pistol grip, he retired.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 286: He stood ready to [...] map out the road to Wellville for millionaires who’d gone off their feed.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘A Tempered Wind’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 173: But old Badville-near-Coney is the ideal burg for a refined piece of piracy.
1911		Out West Oct. 239: Socially slang is a ‘climber’ from Climbersville.
1912		D. Runyon ‘The Shade of the Sage’ 29 Jan. [synd. col.] The Con Man peddled the Flatiron to a farmer from Boobville, O.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Aerial Performer’ in Ade’s Fables 196: Bob came from Simpville, but he had acquired a couple of Wrinkles associating with the Wing Shots in the Paddock.
1915		Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 188: Gadding about, now to Philadelphia, now to Saskatchewan, anon to Onehorseville.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 97: These Yapville sports think they’re all-get-out if they have one change of bill a week.
1928		J. O’Connor Broadway Racketeers 51: He was welcomed into the inner circles of Racketville.
1930		R. McAlmon ‘Blithe Insecurities’ in Knoll McAlmon and the Lost Generation (1976) 88: Marie’s not meant for hickville.
c.1935		‘Mae West in “The Hip Flipper”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 97: The kid is really registering with the big gun of Flickersville [i.e. Hollywood].
1935		C. Drew ‘The Bone-Head’ in Bulletin 6 May 28/1: If everyone had their rights I’d be a star patient in Giggleville [i.e. a psychiatric institution].
1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 24 May 13: Helena [Horne] , admittedly the most sought-after warbler of the day in chirpville.
1946		J. Evans Halo in Blood (1988) 40: A flea-trap on West Madison Street in the heart of Chicago’s Bumville.
1948		D. Wecter ‘The New Leisure Class’ in Brookhouser These Were Our Years (1959) 313: Old newspapers were called ‘Hoover blankets,’ [...] and the shanties of starvation rising on the outskirts of cities ‘Hoovervilles.’.
1949		Music Library Association Notes Dec. 41: Addition of the suffix ville is a common verbal procedure among song-pluggers. Origin of the device is perhaps Storyville in New Orleans, the area in which jazz reputedly had its birth.
1955		S. Allen Bop Fables 10: ‘Weirdsville,’ said the baby bear.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 199: Man, I been to Hurtsville, I know what it is.
1958		Murtagh & Harris Cast the First Stone 19: Look at here, daddy-o. A doll from dollville.
1959		‘Paul Merchant’ ‘Sex Gang’ in Pulling a Train’ (2012) [ebook] It had to be coolsville for a week at least.
1960		P. Oliver Blues Fell this Morning 103: In the tight tenement communities of Harlem and Chicago’s Bronzeville.
1960		Sandusky Register (OH) 19 Nov. n.p.: He belongs to Dripsville and probably will wind up in Gravesville.
1961		Long Beach Press-Telegram 14 Dec. 8: Antsville is a crowded place.
1961		C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 21: Most Negroes live together [...] in their own communities, such being known as black-belts, dark-towns, nigger-slums, fly-burgs, smoke-villes or simply colored districts.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 358: The mass of gray masonry of Dopeville, U.S.A.
1964		L. Hansberry Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window in Three Negro Plays (1969) II iii: Sure. Dullsville.
1967		Sun. Times 24 Sept. 35: University? That’s just dragsville.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 479: A swinging chick from Hooksville.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 51: noplaceville – A small town located near the big city where everyone wears brown shoes, white socks and has a crew cut. The squares meet here every Tuesday.
1968		Oz 9 8/1: When we’ve got the communes on the groove, we’ll support and expand the whole of Hipville.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 98: He sat there just looking at me like I should [...] head for ‘suckerville.’.
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 100: Status was divvied up into geographical dualisms: in, out; with it, from squaresville.
1970		T. Southern Blue Movie (1974) 50: I’m sorry fellas [...] it’s disasterville.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 139: Stephanie preferred to say Bayswater, Paddington sounding too much like whoresville.
1976		E. Thompson Caldo Largo (1980) 213: I looked like a Mexican dude from Dudesville.
1978		L.K. Truscott IV Dress Gray (1979) 244: They miss their fuckin’ girl friends back home in Palookaville.
1984		J. Ellroy Blood on the Moon 115: ‘Capitol Records is not your gig. Let's splitsville’.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 125: Hey, Jerkola-ville, clean up your act.
1989		R. Dahl Rhyme Stew (1990) 20: ‘You’re round the twist!’ the Hare cried out. / ‘You’re bonkersville! You’re up the spout!’.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 135: The manager told him Chris Bergeron splitsvilled day before yesterday.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 34: It was difficult to think when I’d last met a man as downright pukesville as Pierce Reece Scanlen Jnr (the Third).
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 61: Preening movie stars making people out there in Dirtville feel like shit. [Ibid.] 357: It’d been so long since I tarried in that Glitzville atmosphere.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] It’s shitsville. Maybe it’s going to be Venice when the Premier’s mates are finished with it, but it was darkest shitsville then [...] .
1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 166: To-tahly groovy babesville yeah.
1999		Guardian Rev. 29 Oct. 8: We don’t bother with the rest of the film because, to be honest, it’s dullsville.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Culture 28 May 8: Five guys ‘from Shitsville, California.’.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 131: Oisinn [...] said it [i.e. a driving test] was easier to pass if you sit it in Bogsville.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 258: I dropped my nowheresville name of Irv Moskowitz.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 348: You’d think that’d be disgustingville too but it’s wet and secret [etc.].
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 33: They lost their big house [...] and moved to Shitsville.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 9: I tore through [the book] quicksville. It felt like it was written for me.
2010		K. Richards Life 338: I started going my way, which was the downhill road to dopesville.
2011		Washington Post 9 July 🌐 Though the [chitlin] circuit operated primarily in the South, its origins were in neighborhoods known as ‘Bronzevilles’: ‘black towns within white cities throughout the segregated North’.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] It smelled like most of the problems in my life taking the first bus out of Boosville.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 3: Purgatory is shitsville [...] no booze, no jazzy intrigue.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 27: Liz and Eddie are splitsville [ibid.] 45: Where’s her hotsville missives from John F. and Robert F. Kennedy? [ibid.] 390: Ollie’s was deadsville [...] We noshed T-bones and hash browns.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 310: Repartee? Jesus! Talk about yawnzville! No, not yawnzville. Toxicville.