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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

boondock.

A brushy, rural area or location.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbuːn.dɒk/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbun.dɑk/General-American
  1. A brushy, rural area or location.

    US
    We got lost out in the boondocks, miles from anywhere.
    It was hard to respect his opinion after he'd called their humble but respectable town "a godforsaken boondock."
  2. A shot that strikes a squopped wink and sends it flying far away.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *bunduk Tagalog bundokbor. English boondock 1910s during or around the Philippine–American War after the Spanish–American War, from Tagalog bundok (“mountain”), adopted by occupying American soldiers serving in the mountains or rural countryside of the American-occupied Philippines under the United States Military Government of the Philippine Islands. The term was reinforced or re-adopted during World War II under the U.S. military, where terms like boondockers (“shoes suited for rough terrain”) came originally in 1944 as U.S. services slang for field boots. It was later shortened to boonies by 1964 originally among U.S. troops serving in the Vietnam War in reference to the rural areas of Vietnam, as opposed to Saigon.

verb/ˈbuːn.dɒk/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbun.dɑk/General-American
  1. To camp in a dry brushy location.

    US
  2. To stay in a self-contained recreational vehicle without connections to water, electricity, or sewer services, especially in a remote location.

    US
    When traveling in the American Southwest, we avoid other people by boondocking in the desert.
  3. To strike a squopped wink and send it flying far away.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *bunduk Tagalog bundokbor. English boondock 1910s during or around the Philippine–American War after the Spanish–American War, from Tagalog bundok (“mountain”), adopted by occupying American soldiers serving in the mountains or rural countryside of the American-occupied Philippines under the United States Military Government of the Philippine Islands. The term was reinforced or re-adopted during World War II under the U.S. military, where terms like boondockers (“shoes suited for rough terrain”) came originally in 1944 as U.S. services slang for field boots. It was later shortened to boonies by 1964 originally among U.S. troops serving in the Vietnam War in reference to the rural areas of Vietnam, as opposed to Saigon.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.