townies

Noun

townie (plural townies)

1. (UK, US) A person living in a university area who is not associated with the university.
   • Professional gamblers have a cushy racket in college football because old grads and even townies of college localities are sentimental bettors and easy to separate from their money.1947 November, “College football business”, in Kiplinger Magazine, page 36
2. (UK) A person who has moved from a town or city to a rural area. Especially, one who is perceived not to have adopted rural ways.
   • [Hamlet] was only repeating the phrase of an ordinary English rustic when jeering at a “townie”—whom he suspected of being a gutter-snipe—that “He don’t know a hawk from a hernshaw”.1914 June 6, Roper Lethbridge, “Village Words”, in The Saturday Review, page 737
3. (UK) A person familiar with the town (urbanised centre of a city) and with going out on the town; a street-wise person.
4. (UK, derogatory) A chav.

   Synonyms:

   synonyms at chav

5. (US) A working-class citizen in a metropolitan area.
6. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, informal) A person who lives in a city or town, or has an urban outlook.
   • Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying, rebuking, mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing the faint-hearted [...] comforting the panic-stricken with rude speech, and more than once tending the dying who had no friends — the men without "townies"[.]1889, Rudyard Kipling, “Only A Subaltern”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 148

See all 8 meanings of townie