Meaning

(often derogatory) Someone who is from the hills; especially from a rural area, with a connotation of a lack of refinement or sophistication..

Definitions by Sense

1. (often derogatory) Someone who is from the hills; especially from a rural area, with a connotation of a lack of refinement or sophistication.
2. (ethnic slur) A white person from the rural southern part of the United States, especially the Southeastern states.
3. To emphasize one's rural or humble upbringing; to use unsophisticated charm.
4. To portray or act as an uneducated and unsophisticated fool.
5. To perform or experience stereotypically hillbilly-like actions.

Example Sentences

Thanks to the massive migration from the poorer regions of Appalachia to places like Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, hillbilly values spread widely along with hillbilly people.

Hillbillying troubadors, the bohemians of a new world, not cafe society but more like the poor white origins of an Elvis Presley.

Like Ken Lay, [Rebecca] Mark came from a small town in Missouri, one of four children in a farm family with deep fundamentalist beliefs. Her conversational style has been polished in Texas, and she is a master of “hillbillying,” the trick of playing up one’s humble origins.

And Kerry doesn’t know how to hillbilly. And it is not a Texas thing, by the way. John F. Kennedy used to hillbilly us. And that meant that he flirted with us. He had a twinkle. Bill Clinton hillbillied us. And Kerry has got to learn how to do that. He has got to dial back and show some relaxed affability.

I think that 20 to 30 years ago nonfundamentalists in America did make a great mistake by typing them, by hillbillying and backwoodsing and holy-rollering them.

God damned mother fuckin son of a bitch cock suckin' asshole, who the fuck does he think he is, that dumb ass, half-brained, hillbillied redneck, given me that Jew shit when he's coppin' money and nobody's got the balls to stand up to him and they're gonna let me take the rap?

The Warner Bros. cartoons, after having hillbillied themselves nearly to death during the 1930s, did not return to the trend during the late 1940s.

Word Forms

• hillbillies
• hillbillying
• hillbillied

Synonyms for hillbilly

Related Words

When Should You Use Hillbilly?

Use hillbilly when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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