rube
noun
an unsophisticated person from a rural area; hick.
rube
1 American
[roob]
/ rub /
noun
Informal.
rubes
plural
Rube
2
American
[roob]
/ rub /
noun
rube
British
/ ruːb /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rube
1895–1900; generic use of Rube; compare earlier use of Reuben in same sense
Explanation
Rube is an insulting word for a person considered uneducated or uncultured. Your average country bumpkin is also a rube. Calling someone a rube is another way of saying, "You sound like an idiot and you don't know what you're talking about." This word implies a lack of sophistication, manners, education, and culture. Rubes are usually from rural areas, and they’re also known as bumpkins, hayseeds, hicks, yahoos, yokels, and hillbillies. This is an insulting word, so use it cautiously — though it's probably fine to use it jokingly with your friends.
Vocabulary lists containing rube
Inherit the Wind
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Jonathan Demme (1944-2017) Tribute List
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Water for Elephants
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Old meaning of hick: hayseed, rube, ill-educated person.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
If you have been investing since your 20s, you’re hardly a rube where your portfolio is concerned.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 12, 2026
Come for the Rube Goldberg machines, leave feeling like a rube.
From Salon ● Feb. 21, 2025
I’m no rube when it comes to magic tricks, but this guy was a certifiable warlock.
From New York Times ● Apr. 24, 2022
You may be awkward; you may be a rube as they say; but you're a great scout just the same.
From Over the Line by Sherman, Harold Morrow
This, of course, is an example of a Rube Goldberg machine—an overly complex mechanism that performs a simple task.
From Barron's ● May 14, 2026
The first Negro National League was founded in 1920 by Rube Foster, a black manager and team owner who had been a star pitcher; it lasted for about a decade before folding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
When ARID1A is mutated, a microscopic chain of events analogous to a Rube Goldberg machine is set off in the cancer cell.
From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024
Also on this fractured fairy tale’s jampacked menu are human-sized animal costumes, arcade graphics, pratfalls, pole dancing, adorable maggot puppets, Rube Goldberg designs, expressionist sequences and even a bar brawl with rodents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2024
The names, Sarah, Bruce, Rube, were familiar...Ages ago, in time well outside the mastaba, they had heard these names—in a classroom, on a school bus...
From "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg
But even these three rubes can tell Hao is hawking baloney.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026
It’s weird to be paranoid or to feign paranoia as part of an elaborate performance to manipulate rubes.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2025
Zaslav knows there are plenty of rubes just like me probably willing to pay.
From The Verge ● Aug. 27, 2022
I refuse to monitor clue-hunting forums dedicated to solving puzzle shows, preferring to find out the true nature of Dolores Abernathy's reality in "Westworld" in real time with all the other rubes.
From Salon ● Dec. 15, 2021
“I’ll be fine. He won’t do anything with rubes around. You’ve got to go. Please.”
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.