yokel
/ˈjəʊ.kəl/
"yokel" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“yokel” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated or naive.
Corpus desk
Index EN-yokel · yokel · English
yokel · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "Y" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | yokel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈjəʊ.kəl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “yokel” in English
Rare enough to double-check
yokel is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈjəʊ.kəl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated or naive.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for yokel, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: First use appears c. 1812, possibly from dialectal German Jokel, diminutive of Jakob, cf. Yankee (“little John”) and jacquerie (“a peasant uprising”). Alternatively, from dialectal English yokel, yuckle (“a European green woodpecker”), itself probably a var… The correct English form is yokel, spelled Y-O-K-E-L.
Definition
- 1A person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated or naive.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how yokel appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
They love the scenery near their summer home, but have no desire to mix with the local yokels.
“[…] my opinion at once is […] that this [robbery] wasn’t done by a yokel―eh, Duff?” “Certainly not,” replied Duff. “And, translating the word yokel, for the benefit of the ladies, I apprehend your meaning to be that this attempt was not made by a countryman?” said Mr. Losberne with a smile.
Etymology
First use appears c. 1812, possibly from dialectal German Jokel, diminutive of Jakob, cf. Yankee (“little John”) and jacquerie (“a peasant uprising”). Alternatively, from dialectal English yokel, yuckle (“a European green woodpecker”), itself probably a variant of hickwall.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.