yokelry

plural yokelries

1. derogatoryuncountableusuallyA class of rural, uneducated, or unsophisticated people; rubes; peasants; the hoi polloi.

   A desire to dazzle the yokelry in the $2.75 box seats will account for a good deal of the coloring of Mr. Wylie's writing.

   1948, Edwin Seaver, editor, Cross Section 1948: A Collection of New American Writing, page 422

   2 more examples

   When the professors touch the caustic to the American yokelry for its lavish esteem of such mush as "Peg o' My Heart," do the solemn comedians not recall that the British yokelry has esteemed it no less?

   1918, George Jean Nathan, The Popular Theatre, page 61

   A few, perhaps, have a further purpose; they desire to assist in that circus, to show themselves in the capacity of fashionables, to enchant the yokelry with their splendor.

   1991 September 20, George Grass, “Star Show”, in Chicago Reader