countrymen

noun

plural of countryman
1
as in compatriots
a person living in or originally from the same country as another met a fellow Canadian countryman while traveling in France

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in peasants
an awkward or simple person especially from a small town or the country though neither well-educated nor well-dressed, the countryman presented the farmers' case before the state legislature

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of countrymen Knowing how dire the situation is for his fellow countrymen is one reason Nazaryna accepts the discomfort of Shakhtar’s travel arrangements. — Simon Johnson, New York Times, 15 Oct. 2026 In some obscure way, Shawn felt responsible for protecting the stranger against the slights of his unyielding countrymen. — Rachel Heng, New Yorker, 4 Oct. 2026 Swan Song is not exactly endearing Spencer to his countrymen, who generally struggle to sympathize with an indiscreet Old Etonian with a fourth wife and a Northamptonshire-size chip on his shoulder. — Ashley Baker, Air Mail, 3 Oct. 2026 One of his countrymen, Javier Giner, also arrives at the San Sebastián Film Festival with his first movie. — Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 21 Sep. 2026 He was haunted by Switzerland’s position of neutrality during the fight against the Nazis, and he was troubled by the accommodations his prosperous countrymen were willing to make after the war to maintain their comfortable detachment. — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 16 Sep. 2026 Like his fellow countrymen, Marrero — a third-year computer science student at the Agrarian University of Havana — has become adept at adapting. — Juan Carlos López, CNN Money, 5 Sep. 2026 Now, after entering its 20th week at Number One, the track has cruised past her fellow countrymen and is the second longest-running Number One single in Billboard Hot 100 history. — Jaeden Pinder, Rolling Stone, 31 Aug. 2026 The Khmer Rouge group that ruled Cambodia from 1975–79 was accused of genocide for causing the deaths of so many of their countrymen from executions, starvation, and lack of medical care due to its radical policies. — ABC News, 16 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for countrymen
  1. compatriots
  2. peasants
  3. citizens
  4. provincials
  5. hicks
  6. mountaineers
  7. clowns
  8. yokels
Noun
  • Like Biden, in this cycle Lula found that a disconcerting number of his compatriots were unmoved by his calls to save democracy from those who would seek to undermine it—or didn’t buy into his rhetoric in the first place.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2026
  • Crystal also praised Short while discussing his SNL compatriots.
    — Wesley Stenzel, Entertainment Weekly, 19 Oct. 2026
Definition of compatriots
Noun
  • Happy peasants, miserable millionaires Graham first spotted the pattern in China.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 24 Oct. 2026
  • After all, from 1773 to 1775, more than thirty-five thousand agriculturalist peasants made war against Russia, in what is commonly referred to as Pugachev’s Rebellion, after the name of its leader.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 19 Oct. 2026
Definition of peasants
Noun
  • The lawsuit is different from previous legal action against the president -- first, in that the plaintiffs are ordinary citizens, shifting the focus from news gatherers to news consumers, and thus implying a much larger pool of stakeholders.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 27 Oct. 2026
  • Israel does not allow most citizens to vote absentee from abroad, so many were expected to fly in, including thousands living in the United States.
    — Lia Lapidot Aaron Boxerman and Lia Lapidot, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2026
Definition of citizens
Noun
  • Marlowe, the son of a poor Canterbury cobbler, and Shakespeare, the son of a Stratford glover and alderman, were both unlikely artistic geniuses, provincials in a nation in which social class was rigidly fixed.
    — Heller McAlpin, Christian Science Monitor, 10 Sep. 2025
Definition of provincials
Noun
  • So a bunch of hicks from Topeka were left up to our own devices of going down to Robert Hall and finding something that might be kind of cool.
    — Devon Ivie, Vulture, 8 Apr. 2026
Definition of hicks
Noun
  • The body was retrieved by helicopter during the afternoon and taken to Lukla, a town known as a gateway for mountaineers and trekkers heading to the Everest region.
    — CBS News, CBS News, 27 Oct. 2026
  • During production, an avalanche killed 16 Sherpas in the icefall, turning the film into a chronicle of the disaster and the disproportionate risks Himalayan climbers take while helping foreign mountaineers pursue their ambitions.
    — Destiny Jackson, Deadline, 26 Oct. 2026
Definition of mountaineers
Noun
  • Many Orlando-area homes feature skeletons that tower over the neighborhood, witchy covens, horror movie icons, clowns, pirate ships, pumpkins, zombies and vampires.
    — Patrick Connolly, The Orlando Sentinel, 22 Oct. 2026
  • Friday, Edith, and the maintenance bots are sometimes goofy comic-relief clowns.
    — Tasha Robinson, Vulture, 21 Oct. 2026
Definition of clowns
Noun
  • It was left to the feds in Boston to arrest Farwell, after Meatball’s local yokels adamantly refused to do anything other than try to broom the crime by one of their own.
    — Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 26 Apr. 2026
Definition of yokels

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Cite this Entry

“Countrymen.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/countrymen. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.

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