| 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 |
|
sj