clodhopper

The story

Compound of clod + hopper (agentive form of the verb hop). Perhaps affected by analogy with grasshopper. The term originated in the 17th century as a derogatory name for a farm laborer—someone who "hopped" (stomped) over "clods" of earth; attested in the sense of "peasant" since the seventeenth century; the extended sense of "boot" or "shoe" dates from the nineteenth century. While originating in Britain, the term survives most strongly in Southern/Appalachian speech.