Compound of red +‎ neck. Compare rooinek. The term originally characterized farmers that had a red neck, caused by sunburn from long hours working in the fields.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛdnɛk/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

redneck (plural rednecks)

1. (slang, usually derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur) A poor, rural, usually white, person from the Southern United States or parts of the Midwest and Northeast, especially one whose beliefs are seen as unsophisticated and backward; sometimes with additional connotations of being bigoted.

   Synonyms: (Australia) bogan, cracker, hick, hillbilly, peckerwood, white trash; see also Thesaurus:chav, Thesaurus:country bumpkin

   • 1989, “Fight the Power”, in Fear of a Black Planet, performed by Public Enemy:

     Sample a look back you look and find / Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check

2. (historical, slang, US) Any of the miners who wore red bandanas for identification during the West Virginia mine war of 1921.^[1]
3. (historical, slang, US) A member of a certain Baltimore street gang, active in 1859.^[2]
4. (UK, archaic, 19th and 20th centuries, religious slur) A Roman Catholic.^[3]

• leftneck
• redneckian
• redneckish
• redneckism
• rednecky