Aussie Words |
Definitions |
Comments |
caaarn! |
Traditional rallying cry at football games (contraction of "Come on!") |
|
cabbage tree hat |
Hat sewn from coil of plaited cabbage tree palm leaf |
Proverbially tough and long-lasting … very expensive … the badge of the native-born colonial |
camp oven |
Large, cast-iron pot with a lid, for cooking on an open fire |
|
Captain Cook |
To have a look |
|
cark it |
To die, cease functioning |
|
cask |
Wine box |
Australian "invention" - first ones were a collapsing sack inside a tinplate cylinder painted with a cask stave pattern (c. 1966/7?) |
cheque |
Payment for the season's/job's work (US 'check') |
|
chiko roll |
Australian junk food |
|
choke a darkie |
Defecate |
|
chokkie |
Chocolate |
|
chook |
A chicken (adult domestic fowl / hen) |
|
chrissie |
Christmas |
|
Christmas |
See Bourke Street |
|
chuck a sickie |
Take the day off sick from work when you're perfectly healthy |
|
chuck a u-ey |
Make a U-turn |
|
chunder |
Vomit, drive the porcelain bus, kerbside quiche, pavement pizza, liquid laugh, r |
|
clay pan |
Dry salt lake bed |
|
Clayton's |
Fake, substitute |
|
cleanskin |
Unbranded cattle |
|
click |
Kilometre - "it's 10 clicks away" |
|
cliner |
Girlfriend of a city larrikin, c. 1900 |
(from German 'kleine') |
clip |
Entirety of the season's wool shorn from sheep |
|
clobber |
Clothes; to hit |
|
cobber |
Friend |
|
cobbler |
Tough, old, wrinkled sheep you shear last (if at all) / the last sheep in a run |
Cobblers' last - sort of rhyming slang |
cockie |
Farmer |
|
cockroach |
A person from New South Wales |
|
cocky |
Small-scale farmer |
Earlier: 'cockatoo farmer' |
coldie |
A beer |
|
colonial experience man |
(Usually) English apprentice grazier - working for keep, but learning the coloni |
|
combo |
White man cohabiting with Aboriginal woman |
(Illegal, in early 20th c., under "Native Protection Act") |
come a gutser |
Make a bad mistake, have an accident |
|
come good |
Turn out all right |
|
compo |
Workers' Compensation pay |
|
conk |
To hit someone (archaic) |
|
cooee |
Bush greeting |
|
cooee, not within |
Figuratively a long way away, far off - England weren't within cooee of beating |
|
coolabah |
Type of box eucalyptus tree |
Not actually providing much shade (Paterson's irony) |
coolgardie safe |
Box for storing perishable foods, cooled by non-mechanical evaporation |
|
copper |
Policeman |
|
cornstalk |
(Old - colonial period) name for New South Wales resident - refers to height of |
|
corroboree |
Aboriginal meeting, with ceremonial dancing |
|
counter lunch |
Pub lunch |
|
counter meal, countery |
Pub meal |
|
cove |
The boss of a station (~ ranch) - the cove in charge … |
A bit more polite than the Cockney sense of 'rogue' |
cow |
Also means anything that is difficult |
|
cow cocky |
Small-scale cattle farmer |
|
cozzie |
Swimming costume (New South Wales) |
|
cradle (noun & verb) |
(wash auriferous soil in) riffled tub on curved feet to separate out the gold |
|
cranky |
In a bad mood, angry |
Varies state to state + means 'crazy', 'eccentric' in Tasmania |
cream (verb) |
Defeat by a large margin |
|
creek |
A (usually) seasonal watercourse |
Not the Scots sense of a bay or inlet on a coast - close to the US sense |
crook |
Ill, badly made, substandard |
|
crow eater |
A person from South Australia |
|
cut lunch |
Sandwiches |
|
cut snake, mad as a |
Very angry |
|
dag |
A funny person, nerd, goof |
|
dag, daggy |
Dirty lump of wool at the back end of a sheep, also an affectionate or mildly ab |
|
daks |
Trousers |
|
damper |
Bush loaf made from flour and water cooked in a camp oven |
|
Darling pea |
Staggers (usually the stock) from eating poisonous plant |
Appears in 'All For My Grog' |
dead horse |
Tomato sauce |
|
deadset |
True, the truth |
|
deli |
Delicatessen |
|
demon |
Policeman, detective |
Originally a Tasmanian (Vandemonian) ex-convict recruited into the colonial police force |
dero |
Tramp, hobo, homeless person (from "derelict") |
|
didgeridoo |
Cylindrical musical instrument played usually by Aboriginal men |
Women are forbidden to play didge in Aboriginal culture because the muscular contractions of playing can cause abortion … ! |
digger |
A soldier - typically from Australia or New Zealand |
Term is a goldrush legacy |
dill |
Idiot |
|
dillybag |
Small bag to carry things |
|
dingo |
Australian native dog, (tranf.) an untrustworthy person or coward |
|
dinkum, fair dinkum |
Genuine or honest |
|
dinky-di |
The real thing, genuine |
|
dipstick |
A loser, idiot |
|
divvy van |
Police divisional van |
|
do your nana |
Lose your rag, spit the dummy, lose your temper |
|
dob (somebody) in |
Inform on somebody |
|
docket |
A bill, receipt |
|
doco |
Documentary |
|
dog |
Unattractive woman |
|
dole bludger |
Somebody on social assistance when unjustified |
|
don't come the raw prawn |
Don't try to fool me |
|
donah |
A girl, to a city larrikin, c. 1900 |
(from Portugese 'dona' ?) |
donger |
Penis |
|
donk |
Car or boat engine |
|
doodle |
Penis |
|
doozey |
Something very pleasant |
|
doughboy |
Flour dumpling |
British dialect / navy slang |
down south |
The rest of Australia, according to someone north of Brisbane, Queensland |
|
Down Under |
Australia and New Zealand |
|
drink with the flies |
To drink alone |
|
drinking down the cheque |
Drinking alcohol ontil all the wages have been squandered |
|
drive the porcelain bus |
Vomit |
|
drongo |
Worthless or stupid person |
North Australian bird that flies south (towards colder regions!) in summer …? |
drover |
Person driving large herds of cattle or sheep across Australia |
|
drum |
Information, tip-off ("I'll give you the drum") |
|
drum (hump the) |
(Carry a) swag |
|
Dry, the |
Dry season in the north, April to November |
|
duco |
Car paint |
Brand name |
duffer, cattle |
Rustler |
|