cracker-barrel love

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Resembling or characteristic of the extended informal discussions carried on by persons habitually assembled at a country store.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective characteristic of country life.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective characteristic of country life

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After the cracker barrels that people supposedly would gather around for conversation in old-time general stores.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cracker-barrel.

Examples

  • With his rumpled clothes and corncob pipe, he was the image of the American cracker-barrel professor eager to mix it up with anyone in a public forum.

    Paul Goodman: Recounting Forgotten Man on the Attack Richard B. Woodward 2011

  • Atticus is a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams.

    What 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Isn't 2010

  • But then I never thought I'd see the day when "To Kill A Mockingbird" --- a novel that has inspired readers for half a century --- would be derided as a book about "the limitations of liberalism" (by Malcolm Gladwell, no less, in The New Yorker, of all places) and "a sugar-coated myth of Alabama's past" with a hero who's "a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams" (by Allen Barra, in the Wall Street Journal)

    Jesse Kornbluth: On Its 50th Birthday, Why Is 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Being Attacked? 2010

  • But then I never thought I'd see the day when "To Kill A Mockingbird" --- a novel that has inspired readers for half a century --- would be derided as a book about "the limitations of liberalism" (by Malcolm Gladwell, no less, in The New Yorker, of all places) and "a sugar-coated myth of Alabama's past" with a hero who's "a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams" (by Allen Barra, in the Wall Street Journal)

    'To Kill A Mockingbird' Anniversary: On Its 50th Birthday, Why Is 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Being Attacked? (VIDEO) 2010

  • Silly cracker-barrel stuff, mostly, although he had a curious store of half-learned knowledge; Bunyan was a favourite, and he was well up on Napoleon and Caesar and assorted military history.

    THE NUMBERS 2010

  • It's a low-key, philosophical musing reminiscent of the voice-over that opens THE BIG LEBOWSKI but played for real rather than as a caricature of the cracker-barrel cowboy spirit-guide vibe you get in the earlier movie.

    Freeform Critique Hal Duncan 2008

  • But then I never thought I'd see the day when "To Kill A Mockingbird" --- a novel that has inspired readers for half a century --- would be derided as a book about "the limitations of liberalism" (by Malcolm Gladwell, no less, in The New Yorker, of all places) and "a sugar-coated myth of Alabama's past" with a hero who's "a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams" (by Allen Barra, in the Wall Street Journal)

    Jesse Kornbluth: 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Anniversary: On Its 50th Birthday, Why Is 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Being Attacked? (VIDEO) 2010

  • It's a low-key, philosophical musing reminiscent of the voice-over that opens THE BIG LEBOWSKI but played for real rather than as a caricature of the cracker-barrel cowboy spirit-guide vibe you get in the earlier movie.

    Archive 2008-01-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • So now Pound was safe, and he became the cracker-barrel philosopher of free verse.

    THE ANTHOLOGIST Nicholson Baker 2009

  • So now Pound was safe, and he became the cracker-barrel philosopher of free verse.

    THE ANTHOLOGIST Nicholson Baker 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.