-noun
| 1. |
an uneducated white farm laborer, esp. from the South. |
| 2. |
a reactionary, esp. from the rural working class. |
-adjective
| 3. |
Also, red-necked. narrow, or reactionary: a redneck attitude. |
- Used as a disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States.
- A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative.
| redneck |
noun |
| a White person in the southern United States |
redneck
A slang term, usually for a rural white southerner who is politically conservative, and a religious fundamentalist (see fundamentalism). This term is generally considered offensive. It originated in reference to agricultural workers, alluding to how the back of a person's neck will be burned by the sun if he works long hours in the fields.
redneck
"cracker," 1893; attested 1830 in more specialized sense ("This may be ascribed to the Red Necks, a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians in Fayetteville," from Ann Royall, "Southern Tour I," p.148). According to various theories, red perhaps from anger, or from pellagra, but most likely from mule farmers' outdoors labor in the sun, wearing a shirt and straw hat, with the neck exposed.