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
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
When Marilyn from Boston, Massachusetts, used the expression Them’s the berries! with neighbors in her hometown of nearby Arlington, Massachusetts, she was surprised they were unfamiliar with it. The phrase means something like “That’s...