"the sticks" meaning in English

See the sticks in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-the sticks.ogg
Etymology: Possibly derived from 1800s Chinook Jargon stick (“tree, forest”), from English stick. Etymology templates: {{bor|en|chn|stick|t=tree, forest}} Chinook Jargon stick (“tree, forest”) Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} the sticks (uncountable)
  1. (Canada, US, informal, derogatory) A remote, rural area; a place that is removed from civilization such as the boondocks. Tags: Canada, US, derogatory, informal, uncountable Synonyms: backwoods, boonies, boondocks, hinterland, middle of nowhere, remote place
    Sense id: en-the_sticks-en-noun-DB-3nQNi Categories (other): American English, Canadian English
  2. (American football) The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball. Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): Football (American) Synonyms: the chains, the yardsticks
    Sense id: en-the_sticks-en-noun-sQoib7~t Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 38 62 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 35 65 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 35 65 Topics: American-football, ball-games, football, games, hobbies, lifestyle, sports
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        {
          "text": "She grew up in the sticks and later moved to the city.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904 The American Missionary, \"A Town of Colored People in Mississippi\" by Rev. B.F. Ousley, vol. 58, no. 9 (November, 1904), p. 295",
          "text": "Most of the farming at present is done in the \"sticks,\" that is, in the large, dead, and often blackened trunks of trees standing in most of the cultivated fields around. There are but few new towns in the Delta where the \"sticks\" are not to be seen, and much damage is sometimes done when these old \"deadenings,\" as they are called, are set on fire."
        }
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        "(Canada, US, informal, derogatory) A remote, rural area; a place that is removed from civilization such as the boondocks."
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          "word": "backwoods"
        },
        {
          "word": "boonies"
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          "word": "boondocks"
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          "word": "hinterland"
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          "text": "They gained just enough on that play to move the sticks and continue the drive.",
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        "The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball."
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        "(American football) The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "the chains"
        },
        {
          "word": "the yardsticks"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
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          "text": "Most of the farming at present is done in the \"sticks,\" that is, in the large, dead, and often blackened trunks of trees standing in most of the cultivated fields around. There are but few new towns in the Delta where the \"sticks\" are not to be seen, and much damage is sometimes done when these old \"deadenings,\" as they are called, are set on fire."
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      ],
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        "(Canada, US, informal, derogatory) A remote, rural area; a place that is removed from civilization such as the boondocks."
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          "word": "backwoods"
        },
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          "word": "boonies"
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          "word": "boondocks"
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          "word": "hinterland"
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          "word": "middle of nowhere"
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        "The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball."
      ],
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          "first down",
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        "(American football) The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "the chains"
        },
        {
          "word": "the yardsticks"
        }
      ],
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        "uncountable"
      ],
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.