English

Adjective

Kaintuck ‎(not comparable)

1. (US, dialect) Of or pertaining to the US state of Kentucky.
   • c. 1958, Theodore Sturgeon, "The Man Who Figured Everything" in The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Vol. X (2005 North Atlantic Books edition), ISBN 9781556435195 (Google books preview):

     His single shot had clipped a boulder right by Coe's head, just the way a Kaintuck rifleman barks a squirrel.

   • 2009, Robert Hicks, A Separate Country, ISBN 9780446558365 (Google books preview):

     I felt at home in the city. Me, a Kaintuck country cracker.

Noun

Kaintuck ‎(plural Kaintucks)

1. (US, dialect) A native or resident of Kentucky, especially one who has a rustic character.
   • 1902, Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville Days, ch. 9 Colonel Sterett's Reminiscences (Google books preview):

     "Sech deescriptions . . . brings back my yearlin' days in good old Tennessee. We-all is a heaplike you Kaintucks down our way."

   • 1998, Barbara Hambly, Fever Season, ISBN 9780307785282 (Google books preview):

     There was a time when January would have been surprised that a Kaintuck could accomplish such mathematics.

2. (US, dialect, obsolete) A worker, especially one having a crude or rowdy manner, on a boat that transported commercial goods on the Mississippi River.
   • 1974, Sylvia Wrobel and ‎George Grider, Isaac Shelby: Kentucky's First Governor and Hero of Three Wars, Cumberland Press, p. 130:

     Most New Orleans citizens . . . were used to the Kentucky riverboatmen, the Kaintucks others called them; they called themselves alligator-horses, and they were largely a rough and tumble breed.

   • 1996, Arthur P. Miller Jr., Trails Across America, ISBN 9781555912352, p. 76 (Google snippet view):

     By 1800 as many as ten thousand "Kaintucks" — the local term for boatmen from anywhere north of Natchez — annually journeyed on the trace, the most direct overland route home.

   • 2008, James A. Crutchfield, It Happened on the Mississippi River, ISBN 9780762752362, p. 44 (Google books preview):

     To the people along the lower Mississippi River, the flatboat men eventually came to be known as Kaintucks, whether or not they hailed from Kentucky.

Proper noun

Kaintuck

1. (US, dialect) The US state of Kentucky.
   • 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age, ch. 1:

     Si Higgins he's ben over to Kaintuck n' married a high-toned gal thar, outen the fust families.

   • 1921, John Buchan, The Path of the King, ch. 12:

     "There ain't no sech hunter as Jim ever came out of Virginny, no, nor out of Caroliny, neither. It was him that fust telled me of Kaintuck."

Synonyms

• (of or pertaining to Kentucky): Kentuckian
• (native or resident of Kentucky): Kentuckian