Word.ws English Dictionary

boondock

UK/ˈbuːn.dɒk//ˈbun.dɑk/

boondock noun: a brushy, rural area or location.

Noun

boondock (plural boondocks)

  1. (US, almost always plural) A brushy, rural area or location.
    • 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. (tiddlywinks) A shot that strikes a squopped wink and sends it flying far away.
    • My family has just rediscovered tiddlywinks. […] [I] haven't quite worked out the boondock!2012, Helen Brooks, The Rainy Day Book

Verb

boondock (third-person singular simple present boondocks, present participle boondocking, simple past and past participle boondocked)

  1. (US) To camp in a dry brushy location.
  2. (US) To stay in a self-contained recreational vehicle without connections to water, electricity, or sewer services, especially in a remote location.
    • When traveling in the American Southwest, we avoid other people by boondocking in the desert.
  3. (tiddlywinks) To strike a squopped wink and send it flying far away.
    • The wise winker also engages in boondocking, a defensive strategy. It involves sending an opponent's winks far from the cup.2002, Peder Jones, Jay Farness, College Writing Skills, page 160

boondock meaning in Tagalog and Persian

boondock in Tagalog

rural area
probinsiya

boondock in Persian

rural area
تورقوزآباد turquz-âbâd

Synonyms of boondock

Forms of boondock

Noun
pluralboondocks
Verb
third-person singular presentboondocks
present participleboondocking
past participleboondocked
pastboondocked

Origin of 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.

Words formed from boondock

Questions about boondock

What does boondock mean?
Boondock means a brushy, rural area or location.
What is boondock in Tagalog?
Boondock in Tagalog is probinsiya. See Boondock meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is boondock?
Boondock can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce boondock?
Boondock is pronounced /ˈbuːn.dɒk/ (UK).
What is the plural of boondock?
The plural of boondock is boondocks.

Words near boondock in the dictionary

  1. boonders
  2. boondi
  3. boondie
  4. boondies
  5. boondis
  6. boondock
  7. boondocked
  8. boondocker
  9. boondockers
  10. boondocking
  11. boondocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boondock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-boondock.wav.

Cite this entry: “boondock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boondock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.