boondocking n. living without conveniences such as municipal electricity or water, indoor plumbing, or grocery stores, especially when camping with a recreational vehicle;roughing it. Editorial Note: Other variations on to boondock, according to the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, are the military sense of ‘to go into or through boondocks; to march through boondocks as punishment or training’; the youth or student sense of ‘to go with a date into a wooded or isolated area for the purpose of love-making’; and the trucking sense of ‘to travel on back roads.’ The 1963 citation probably belongs to the latter sense. Etymological Note: From the boondocks, a wild or unpopulated area, from the Tagalog bundoc or bondoc ‘a mountain.’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital is a sensuous, exhilarating meditation about the strangeness of life on a space station, with its mix of tedious tasks and jaw-dropping views. And: a musician who rode the rails in his youth shares the slang he...
Steve, a singer-songwriter from Rock Springs, Wyoming, shares some slang he picked up while months riding the rails and busking. Spanging refers to panhandling, from asking for “spare change.” The term bull refers to a type of security...