country cousin

country cousin (plural country cousins)

1. (informal) An acquaintance from the countryside, who is regarded by city dwellers as being poorly adapted for city life.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:country bumpkin

   • 1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields:

     And how like a country cousin, to come down upon a poor body in this way, without so much as a day’s notice, or asking whether she would be welcome!

   • 1916 [1896], Henry James, The Figure in the Carpet‎:

     Special commissioners had begun, in the “metropolitan press,” to be the fashion, and the journal in question must have felt it had passed too long for a mere country cousin.

   • 1951 September, Sally Iselin, “I Bought a Dress in Paris”, in The Atlantic‎:

     As in Rome, it is considered very country-cousiny to be seen in the same dress more than twice.

   • 2020 April 22, “Letters: Open Access: Changes in London”, in RAIL, number 903, page 31:

     My fellow students, as politely as they could manage, explained to their up-country cousin why none of these things were possible or desirable.

   • 2022 September 7, Jim Steer, “CrossCountry: the heart of the nation”, in RAIL, number 965, page 30:

     CrossCountry is a poor country cousin of the London-centric set of long-distance services.