Palookaville
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An imaginary town, the natural home of the mediocre and incompetent. US
"But what holds it is the working-class poetry of Derek Ahonen’s script, with the “broken down dreams” and a “gutter full of empty stomachs” of a hard-boiled era of soulful stiffs and dreamers going nowhere. It’s the speeded-up sound of a return trip to Palookaville."
Example
More examples"But what holds it is the working-class poetry of Derek Ahonen’s script, with the “broken down dreams” and a “gutter full of empty stomachs” of a hard-boiled era of soulful stiffs and dreamers going nowhere. It’s the speeded-up sound of a return trip to Palookaville."
Etymology
From palooka (“a stupid or oafish person”) + -ville. Popularized in On the Waterfront (1954).
Related phrases
More for "palookaville"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.