| Aussie Words |
Definitions |
Comments |
| B & S |
Bachelors and Spinsters Ball - a dance cum piss-up |
Sorry, the perils of a Latin education (cum = with, in Latin) |
| B-bows |
(Old fashioned) hand shears |
The spring between the 2 blades is shaped like a letter B |
| back of beyond |
Far away in the outback |
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| back of Bourke |
The middle of nowhere |
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| backblocks |
The remote interior of the country |
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| bag |
Lady who is not particularly pleasant |
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| bail (somebody) up |
To corner somebody physically |
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| bail out |
Depart, usually angrily |
|
| bail up |
Hold up, rob, earbash |
Comes from dairy farming - 'crushing' cows for milking |
| ball-tearer |
Wonderful thing |
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| banana bender |
Resident of Queensland |
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| bandicoot |
Australian marsupial - pointy nose, size of large rat |
Adoption of Indian (Telegu) word 'pandikokku' = 'pig-rat' = bandicota indica |
| barbie (barbecue) |
Like a cook out |
Spanish origin, 'barbacoa, from Arawak language |
| Barcoo |
Far outback (Barcoo R. region of western Queensland) |
|
| barney |
Fight or scuffle |
|
| barrack |
To cheer on a team at a sporting event |
Can also mean: banter, provocative or derisive language - cognate … but to … not derived from borak? |
| bastard |
General form of address which can mean practically anything from highest praise |
|
| bathers |
Swimming costume (Victoria and South Australia) |
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| battler |
Hard trier, struggler |
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| bear |
Colonial era: (native) bear = koala |
Koala is a marsupial, not a bear |
| beaut, beauty, bewdie |
Very good |
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| belt up! |
Shut up! |
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| berko |
Angry |
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| bible basher |
Minister, or any proselytising Christian |
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| bickie |
Dollar |
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| big mobs |
Large amount, heaps |
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| big-note oneself |
Brag, boast |
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| bikies |
Motorcyclists |
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| bikkie |
Biscuit (also "it cost big bikkies" - it was expensive) |
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| billabong |
An ox-bow river or watering hole |
East coast Aboriginal languages = dead water |
| billy |
Large tin can used to boil water over a campfire for tea |
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| bities |
Biting insects |
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| bitumen |
Surfaced road |
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| bitzer |
Mongrel dog (bits of this and bits of that) |
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| bizzo |
Business ("mind your own bizzo") |
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| black stump, beyond the |
A long way away, the back of nowhere |
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| black velvet |
(Originally illicit) relations of white male and black female |
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| block |
Block has a few meanings but the more Aussie one is your head |
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| bloke |
Person, usually a male |
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| bloody |
All-purpose intensifying adjective |
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| bloody oath! |
That's certainly true |
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| blooming |
Low level intensive (not quite bloody!) |
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| blow in the bag |
Have a breathalyzer test |
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| blowie |
Blow fly |
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| bludge |
Not doing anything or getting things from others |
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| bludger |
Lazy person |
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| blue |
A fight |
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| blue a cheque |
Spend your wages in a glorious booze-up (NOT = blew!) |
Thus "Blued his cheque" not "Blew his cheque" |
| blue, make a |
Make a mistake |
|
| bluey |
A swag, blanket roll |
Army blankets were grey-blue wool |
| bluey |
Blue cattle dog (named after its subtle markings) |
|
| bluey |
Traffic ticket or redhead person |
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| board |
The timber floor on which sheep are shorn in a shearing shed |
|
| bodgy |
Of inferior quality |
This is from earlier word 'bodger' - self-employed woodworker |
| bonzer |
Great, ripper |
|
| boobook |
Australian bird - ninox novaeseelaniae - in the owl family, but more like a stur |
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| boogie board |
A hybrid, half-sized surf board |
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| boomer |
Very large; a particularly large male kangaroo |
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| boomerang |
Curved flat wooden instrument used by Aborigines for hunting |
Throwing stick: hunting boomerangs don't return. Returning type a thrown to scare birds down to the ground where they are caught. |
| booze |
Alcohol, usually beer |
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| booze bus |
Police vehicle used for catching drunk drivers |
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| boozer |
A pub |
Also a drinker |
| borak |
(Borack, borax) nonsense, emphatic negation |
Pidgin, from Wathwurung burag … not from barrack...? |
| bored shitless |
Very bored |
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| boss of the board |
Shearing contractor or supervisor |
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| bottle shop |
Liquor shop |
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| bottle-o |
Liquor shop |
Also a dealer in second hand bottles |
| bottler |
Something excellent |
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| bottling, his blood's worth |
He's an excellent, helpful bloke |
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| bowyang (boyang) |
Cord, thong or strap round trouser leg, below knee |
Brit. Dialect 'booyang' |
| brass razoo, he hasn't got a |
He's very poor |
|
| breaker |
Specialist horse tamer/trainer |
Pen-name of poet Harry 'Breaker' Morant |
| brekkie |
Breakfast |
|
| brick shit house, built like a |
Big strong bloke |
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| brizzie |
Brisbane, state capital of Queensland |
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| brolga |
Australian native crane - elaborate courtship dance resemble 'quadrille', square |
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| brown-eyed mullet |
A turd in the sea (where you're swimming!) |
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| brownie (browny) |
Sweetened currant bread - a 'bush' treat |
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| brumby |
A wild horse |
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| buck's night |
Stag party, male gathering the night before the wedding |
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| Buckley's |
No chance at all |
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| Buckley's, Buckley's chance |
No chance ("New Zealand stands Buckley's of beating Australia at football") |
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| bug (Moreton Bay bug) |
Small crab |
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| bull bar |
Stout bar fixed to the front of a vehicle to protect it against hitting kangaroo |
Or bulls! |
| bull dust |
Fine and sometimes deep dust on outback roads |
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| bullamanka |
Imaginary place even beyond back of Bourke, way beyond the black stump |
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| bullock |
Ox |
A castrated bull used as a draught animal |
| bullocky, bullockie |
Bullock driver - carter operating with a team of bullocks and a dray |
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| bun in the oven |
Pregnant |
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| bundy |
Short for Bundaberg, Queensland, and the brand of rum that's made there |
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| bung |
Crook, broken |
Eastern Aboriginal = dead |
| bunny |
Rabbit, a mug, a swindler's victim |
3rd sense cognate with 18th c. London sense of 'coney' |
| bunyip |
Mythical outback creature |
Inhabits swamps and billabongs |
| burl |
Have a try, as in "give it a burl" |
Scots dialect: burl = twirl, spin … Aussie usage via two-up call 'give it a burl' = have a bet, chance your arm |
| bush |
Somewhere in the country or away from the city |
It's all either "Sydney … or the bush" |
| bush telegraph |
Gossip network |
|
| bush tucker |
Native foods, usually in the outback |
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| bushbash |
Force one's way through pathless bush |
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| bushie |
Someone who lives in the Bush |
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| bushranger |
Highwayman, outlaw |
Originally (c. 1788) a 'trusty' convict given a gun and told to go an shoot something for food .. Oddly enough, a lot of them did not come back - at least until they ran out of powder and shot! |
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