Podunk

A member of a Native American people who spoke an Algonquian Quiripi language and lived primarily in modern-day Hartford County, Connecticut.

Proper noun

A mythical small town of no importance. [from 19th c.]
- They even know it in Podunk, wherever that may be. - 1869, Mark Twain, Mr. Beecher and the Clergy:
- Podunk. A term applied to an imaginary place in burlesque writing or speaking. - [1877, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, 4th edition, page 791:
- Podunk, like Atlantis, has no locus. Sought often, it is unfound and apparently unfindable. - 1933 February 2, F. W. Buxton, Boston Herald:

Origin

From an Eastern Algonquian, likely Loup A, word or words. Similar names were applied to various small and generally unknown places. By the late 19th century the word came to mean an obscure small town, a use possibly popularized by Mark Twain (see quotation). Carlton and Reed survey similar place names and note a transformation from Potaecke to Potunke to Podunk. Carlton suggests a derivation from the adjective petukque ("round"). Tooker compares Ojibwe petobeg (“bog”) (as Chippewa) and Abenaki poteba (“to sink in the mire”) and divides the word into pot- ("to sink") and -unk (locative). Algonquian expert Ives Goddard says "We have no idea what the word means. You'll be able to find guesses in the sources if you look around. Don't believe any of it."