what" hick "mean & how it got on in use use?

Answer 1

"Hick" is a derogatory term for a person from a rural area, or also used to describe someone who is unsophisticated or not very intelligent. It's thought to have come from "Old Hickory", the nickname for President Andrew Jackson who was from a rural area. See more at the reference below.

Answer 2

Hick (also country hick or country bumpkin) is a derogatory term for a person from a rural area.

Popular etymology says the term derives from the nickname "Old Hickory" for Andrew Jackson, one of the first Presidents of the United States to come from rural hard-scrabble roots. This nickname suggested that Jackson was tough and enduring like an old Hickory tree. Jackson was particularly admired by the residents of remote and mountainous areas of the United States, people who would come to be known as "hicks." The Oxford English Dictionary says it was "by-form" of the personal name Richard (like Dick) and Hob (like Bob) for Robert.

"Hicks" have sometimes been seen, and often been portrayed in popular media, as easy marks for sophisticated urbanites. However, at times this can be turned to the advantage of an apparent hick who is more sophisticated than he appears, which is a frequent basis for a confidence game operation. Like the Hillbilly stereotype of the United States Hicks are considered to have low IQ. There is no conclusive scientific evidence for this.

A famous usage of the term comes from the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy which features the Variety headline "STIX NIX HIX PIX", which was a story about how movies portraying rural-dwellers as hicks were, unsurprisingly, unpopular in such areas ("the sticks"). Stereotypes of hicks in the popular mind are often derived from such motion pictures as The Egg and I, featuring the first screen appearance of the hick characters Ma and Pa Kettle. The Beverly Hillbillies were television hicks, although many feel that they, particularly Granny, often in the final analysis got the better of their nemesis, Mrs. Drysdale, and were more mentally stable than the repressed and effete Miss Jane Hathaway, banker Drysdale's secretary.

Some people complain that "hicks" continue as almost the only group that can be ridiculed and stereotyped with impunity. "Hick" is a less frequently used as a term for any American of European descent by other racial groups.

Answer 3

"Hick" is widely agreed to be derived from a nickname for Richard --Middle English Hikke
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=hick
http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=hick

Similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary says it was "by-form" of the personal name Richard (like Dick) and Hob (like Bob) for Robert.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick

"Hick" was actually just one of many examples of a trend of creating rhyming nicknames (arbitrarily changing the first letter). Hick and Dick (appearing in writing around 1220) were at the beginning of a great 13th-14th century trend That's where we get all these surprising forms like Polly from Molly, Bob from Rob (from Robert), Bill from Will (from William); and Hodge from Roger.

Incidentally, a variant on this is also preserved in the nursery rhyme "HICKORY, dickory, dock"!

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdick.html


(Apparently ONE impetus in this letter swapping was a dislike amongst the native English for the harsh Norman French "r". (Note how many nicknames made substitions for r's -- not only at the beginning of words [Richard, Robert], but in the middle of them -- Mary > Molly, Sarah > Sally/Sadie, Dorothy > Dolly; Harold/Harry (> Hal).)
http://www.geocities.com/edgarbook/names/other/nicknames.html
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As for the modern derogatory use of "hick", meaning "country bumpkin"--

This apparently goes back to the beginning, or very near it. (It iseven possible that the word was specifically coined --using the rhyming/letter-swapping practice described above-- to mock countryfolk.) We find this mocking use in use around 1565. At the time "Richard" was considered a typical "country" name.
http://www.word-detective.com/061300.html

Answer 4

hill billy, a person who lives in the country on a farm or a ranch or people who are not very smart.

Answer 5

countryman, farmer, provincial.
yokel