subs. (colloquial).—A country bumpkin. [From CHAW, a vulgar form of chew, to masticate or chew, + BACON, the staple food of agricultural labourers.] Other nicknames for a countryman are bacon-slicer; clodhopper; barn-door savage; clodpole; cart-horse; Johnny; cabbage-gelder; turnip-sucker; joskin; jolterhead; yokel; clod-crusher, etc.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum. CHAW BACON. A countryman. A stupid fellow.
1822. Blackwood’s Magazine, XII., 379. You live cheap with CHAW-BACONS and see a fine, flat country. [M.]
1854. WHYTE-MELVILLE, General Bounce, ch. v. ‘Give me the pail, you lop-eared buffoon—do you call that the way to feed a pig?’ and the General, seizing the bucket from an astonished CHAW-BACON, who stood aghast, as if he thought his master was mad, managed to spill the greater part of the contents over his own person and gaiters.
