Podunkadj.n.

1657 in J. H. Trumbull Public Rec. Colony of Connecticut (1850) I. 305 The Court wearied w^th their speeches pressed the Potunck Indians to deliuer vp the murtherer.

1761 E. Stiles Extracts from Itineraries (1916) 136 Podunk Tribe at the dividing Line between Windsor & Hartford East side; between 2 & 300 Men in Philips War; went off & never returned.

1797 B. Trumbull Compl. Hist. Connecticut xix. 494 When the council of ministers met, at Hartford, in 1657, the famous Mr. Eliot, hearing of the Podunk Indians, desired, that the tribe might be assembled, that he might have an opportunity of offering Christ to them for their Saviour.

1864 C. De Wolf Brownell Indian Races N. & S. Amer. 248 The Tunxis and Podunk Indians, who inhabited either side of the Connecticut.

1937 Bull. Archaeol. Soc. Connecticut Apr. 2 The Podunk tribe had two permanent villages during early colonial times... The largest Podunk village was located in South Windsor.

1981 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 12 Apr. 1/4 Settlers had harsh dealings with Podunk Indians, and there are historical accounts of the settlers' use of a 1646 state law that authorized the exportation of Indians, usually to England, in exchange for black slaves.

1986 Amer. Jrnl. Legal Hist. 30 44 The court distinguished between the land owned severally by sachem Tantonimo of the Podunk tribe and the land owned by the tribe.

1943 E. Fergusson Chile xi. 135 The small-town Chilean woman, who would be the natural friend of the Podunk woman living in Chile, does not speak English.

1976 National Observer (U.S.) 30 Oct. 15/5 It won't be just the Podunk liberal-arts colleges that have to hustle. Some of the big state schools, and some well-known large universities, will be out there too—to find new publics.

1988 K. Lynch Adventures on Wine Route (1990) iii. 76 He may also be a bit bored there in podunk Boutenac.

2005 Florida Times-Union (Nexis) 16 Feb. e1 The funniest thing I ever saw was when I went through a little podunk airport in Texas and there was an Amish kid wearing a Jeff Gordon T-shirt.

1797 Amer. Gazetteer at Connecticut The present territory of Connecticut, at the time of the first arrival of the English, was possessed by the Pequot, the Mohegan, Podunk, and many other smaller tribes of Indians.

1842 W. L. Stone Uncas & Miantonomoh 31 The Podunks resided upon the lands now comprised in the town of East Hartford.

1859 N.Y. Weekly Tribune 8 Oct. 3/1 The Numkatunks, Quinnipiacs, Podunks, and Quinnebogs, were present from New-Haven and vicinity.

1910 F. W. Hodge Handbk. Amer. Indians II. 271/1 Podunk. A band or small tribe on Podunk r., in Hartford co., Conn., closely related to the Poquonnoc.

1935 Colony of Connecticut (Connecticut Board Educ.) (Senate Doc. 53, 74th Congr., 1st Sess.) 1 A few years previously in 1631 the chief of one of the Indian tribes in the Connecticut Valley, the Podunks, had journeyed to the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies to invite them to see the fertile Connecticut Valley.

2000 Hartford (Connecticut) Courant (Nexis) 11 Feb. b1 He tells Peter he can spend the winter learning the language and customs of the Podunks and other tribes.

1840 Token & Atlantic Souvenir 109 Solomon Waxtend was a shoemaker of Podunk, a small village of New York.

1846 Daily National Pilot (Buffalo, N.Y.) 13 Jan. 3a Messrs. Editors: I hear you ask, ‘Where in the world is Podunk?’ It is in the world, sir; and more than that, is a little world of itself. It stands ‘high up the big Pigeon’, a bright and shining light amid the surrounding darkness. I look back, sir, with pride upon the day when I located in the then unincorporated burgh of Podunk.

1865 O. W. Norton Army Lett. (1903) 277 I presume that just about this time of day you are sitting in one of the slips in that ‘Podunk’ or ‘Chachunk’ (what do you call it?) ‘meetin' house’.

1899 Atlantic Monthly Apr. 570 In the beginning the Glenns created Sweet Auborn... Nearly two hundred years have passed over the hill country since then, and what do we have now? ‘Podunk,’ say those who know.

1933 Rev. of Reviews Feb. 33 It [sc. the 18th amendment] required one rule for Podunk, Kansas, and one for New York City.

1947 Time 27 Jan. 4/3 It has raised the hope of this Mainstreeter from Podunk to its highest ebb since the era of Wendell Willkie's ‘One World’.

1960 Times Lit. Suppl. 15 Jan. 27/3 A diploma from Harvard is much more marketable than a diploma from Podunk College.

2002 Richmond (Va.) Times Dispatch (Nexis) 24 Dec. b1 I'm on the road to Podunk.