hayseed

From hay +‎ seed.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈheɪˌsid/

hayseed (countable and uncountable, plural hayseeds)

1. (countable, uncountable) Seeds from grass that has become hay.
   • 1867, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, chapter IX, in The Gambler, translated by C. J. Hogarth‎^[1]:

     I lay and lay, and was doctored and doctored,; until at last I drove the physicians from me, and called in an apothecary from Nicolai who had cured an old woman of a malady similar to my own—cured her merely with a little hayseed.

2. (countable, uncountable) Cruft from bits of hay that sticks to clothing, etc.
3. (countable) A rustic person; a yokel or bumpkin.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:country bumpkin

hayseed (comparative more hayseed, superlative most hayseed)

1. Characteristic of or befitting a hayseed (person); rustic, uncultivated, backwater.
   • 1892, John Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts From Diary, volume II, published 1969, page 241:

     The Corporation of Western Reserve University, with entire unanimity and ombliferous enthusiasm, made you to-day an LL. D. It is no small shakes of a hayseed College, I would have you know.

   • 1988, Richard Sapir, Quest‎^[2]:

     And when he got his first demand, he shook his head and put a pained expression on his face, and in his most hayseed manner allowed as how things were kind of different now.