Australian English vocabulary

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According to stereotype, spoken Australian English is thought to be highly colloquial, possibly more so than other spoken variants. Whether this idea is grounded in reality or not, a substantial number of publications aimed at giving an overview of Australian English have been published.

Many books about Australian vocabulary have been published, beginning with Karl Lentzner's Dictionary of the Slang-English of Australia and of Some Mixed Languages in 1892. Several similar books soon followed, including a relatively modest but authoritative work by E. E. Morris: Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages (1898).

After a long period of disinterest and/or antipathy, the first dictionaries of Australian English began to appear. In 1976, the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary was published, the first dictionary edited and published in Australia, by Graeme Johnston. In 1981, the more comprehensive Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English was published, after 10 years of research and planning. Updated editions have been published since and the Macquarie Dictionary is widely regarded as authoritative. A fuller Oxford Dictionary of Australian English has also been published.

Various publishers have also produced "phrase books" to assist visitors. These books reflect a highly exaggerated and often outdated style of Australian colloquialisms and they should partially be regarded as amusements rather than accurate usage guides.

Contents 1 General vocabulary 1.1 A to D 1.2 E to K 1.3 L to P 1.4 Q to Z 1.5 Old, declining or expired slang 1.6 Rhyming slang 2 Term pertaining to specific topics 2.1 Animals 2.2 Money 2.3 Cigarettes 2.4 Placeholders 2.5 The sticks 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] General vocabulary

This list is not intended to be comprehensive. Please see separate articles for Australian rhyming slang, Australian English terms for people, Australian English terms for food and drink, Australian rules football slang, and Australian military slang. Please note that a number of the words listed are very localised or almost obsolete today.

[edit] A to D

A

• aggro – (adj) aggressive; (n) aggravation
• arsey - someone showing daring, audacity, and/or cheekiness or experiencing extremely good luck, particularly if this involves a near-miss to injury. In use since the 1950s. Derived from "tin arsed".
• not being arsed - lack of interest, as in "I couldn't be arsed to do it". Also British English.
• arvo – short for afternoon; in use since the 1950s

B

• bag - (v) to denigrate; (n) an ugly woman; both senses in use since the 1960s
• bags - to reserve, as in "(I) Bags the last frosty fruit (ice block)" or "can someone do the dishes?" "Bags not!". Also used in UK English.
• beaut – (adj) great, terrific; in use since the 1910s (n) great thing; for example, "What a beaut!"; in use since the 1890s
• beauty – exclamation showing approval, often spelt as bewdy (to represent Australian pronunciation). For example: "You bewdy!", which is roughly equivalent to "Fantastic!" or "Wonderful!". In use since the 1850s.
• bickie – biscuit. Sometimes also used as a word for a cigarette lighter, after the manufacturer Bic. More recently this has become a slang word for the drug ecstasy, from the slang disco biscuit.
• biff or biffo - brawl or fist fight
• blue
  • a brawl or heated argument; similar to the British word "barney"
  • an embarrassing mistake (for example, "I've made a blue.")
  • pornographic ("a blue movie")
  • offensive ("blue language")
  • someone with red hair (also "Bluey")
• bludge – to shirk, be idle, or waste time either doing nothing or something inappropriate; to live off others efforts rather than providing for one's self, to receive welfare payments; to deliberately skip school classes (used mainly by adolescents): compare bum
• bloody – very; "the great Australian adjective / adverb"; also common in British English
• bloody oath – Used as an affirmative to a statement, often when something has been understated. Believed to date back to colonial times, from the expression "My colonial oath!" and then later "My Australian oath!"
• bodged – botched; of inferior or poor quality; contraction of bodgie; see Old, declining or expired Australian vocabulary
• brick shithouse - (The appearance of) being strongly built ("... built like a brick shithouse"); from the chunky look of well-made backyard dunnies of pre-70's and rural housing
• buckley's – (originally "buckley's chance" and "buckley's and none"); something which has little or no chance of success, as in "You've got buckley's of getting there before the store closes." Origin uncertain, possibly a reference to an escaped convict, William Buckley, who was believed dead in 1803, but lived in an Aboriginal community for more than 30 years. As in, "You've got two chances: Buckley's and none"
• bum crumb - an insult
• bummed - feeling depressed or unhappy about the result of something. ie "Mate I was really bummed after I droppped the ball over the tryline". Can also refer to being on the receiving end of homosexual intercourse.
• bummer - a shame or expresion of commiseration about something gone awry.

ie "I didn't get the job" "Bummer"

• bundy - run away from a situation to escape getting introuble or caught. Also a type of alcohol, Bundaberg Rum
• bung
  • originally a stopper in a cask; a synonym for "put" or "place"; as in "bung it in the oven" (also used in British English); also pretending as in "bunging it on"
  • not working, broken, impaired, injured or infected. From the Jagara (Aboriginal language) word for "dead".
• bush
  • woodland, generally called bushland
  • rural Australia (not necessarily the Outback) and those who live in it
• bush bashing - to drive through the bush in a 4WD (SUV); a difficult walk
• bushfire - wild forest fire
• bushwalking – hiking in the bush

C

• cactus – non-functional
• carn – Assimilation of "come on!" or "Go on!"; usually used to either goad someone, "Carn, have another.", or to cheer on a sporting team "Carn the Doggies."
• chunder – (v) to vomit; (n) vomit
• Clayton's – not the real thing, ersatz (from a brand of zero alcohol mixer, advertised as "The drink you have when you're not having a drink") less widely used than in New Zealand. Declining as the commercial has not played in many years.
• crook – unwell; unfair; angry
• cut – angry or upset; to be "mad as a cut snake" is to be angry.

D

• dag – literal meaning is a poo hanging from a sheep's bum. Is used in a more friendly manner to describe how someone dresses, or a friendly reproach. "Did you see her Dad shirt? He's such a dag."
• dead set – (adj) certain; indisputable
• deadly – excellent (Aboriginal English)
• devo – (IPA: /ˈde.vəʉ/), devastated
• devo - (IPA: /ˈdiː.vəʉ/), deviant
• der – that's obvious, duh; an exasperated acknowledgement common in Victoria and New South Wales, especially among children. Also
• dekko - a look, to inspect something
• dink – to give somebody a lift on the back of a bicycle. The term double-dink is used in Northern and Western NSW.
• dinkum – honest, genuine, real (OED). Probably not, as is often claimed, from the Cantonese (or Hokkien) ding kam, meaning "top gold". Most scholars believe dinkum was a dialect word from the East Midlands of England, where it meant "hard work" or "fair work", which was also the original meaning in Australian English.[1] The derivation dinky-di means a native-born Australian or "the real thing". Fair dinkum means "fair and square", i.e. honest. Can be shortened to "Dinks"
• dirty - (adj) bad, when applied to weather "It's going to get dirty later this afternoon"
• division – electoral district, equivalent to constituency in UK, electorate in New Zealand, riding in Canada (This term is formally used in the parliament but in general use the term 'electorate' is most common).
• donk – a combustion engine
• dob – to inform on. If this occurs one has been "dobbed in" and a person who does this is a "dobber", though the latter term is usually restricted to children and sometimes called a dibber-dobber. Adult dobbers for real crimes (as opposed to telling Mum or a teacher) are commonly called dogs or mongrels.
• doona – cf. British duvet. From the brand name Doona; cf. dyne with same pronunciation in Scandinavian languages. Originally the generic term was continental quilt. In South Australia and, to a lesser extent, Queensland the word quilt is used, and the term eiderdown (from the name of the eider duck) is also used.
• dreamtime – in the mythology of most Indigenous Australians, a "golden age" when the first ancestors and living things were created; a calque of the Arrernte word alcheringa
• duck's nuts, duck's guts or bee's knees - something that is perfectly suited (Sometimes referred to as the
• dummy – a device, usually plastic, for babies to suck. cf. American pacifier (also common in British English); or cf. American mannequin. Also an idiot.

[edit] E to K

E

• emu bob – the duty given to enlisted men in the military, of picking up cigarette butts lying around barracks and parade grounds. The term arose by the similarity between a person bending over to pick up litter and the distinctive bob that emus make when picking at the ground. The term is primarily used in military circles but in recent years its usage has broadened. It was also used up until at least the last 5 years by Scouts and Cub Scouts for the same activity. The term emu parade, meaning the collection of all types of litter, enjoys wider usage. The term emubob is still used among Australian Army Cadets to describe the duty of moving through an area in extended file to pick up rubbish.

F

• fair dinkum – see dinkum
• fair enough – I don't see a problem with that; OK
• fair go – request for a reasonable opportunity to complete a task, "Fair go, mate."
• feral - someone or something that's mad and displays out of control behaviour not normally associated with them; (of food) no longer suitable for consumption. A Feral (with capitals) is a derogratory term for variety of modern day hippies, commonly stereotyped as unclean in habits and living rought in the Bush.
• flat out - busy (e.g. "I'm flat out like a lizzard drinking."); moving as fast as possible (e.g. "She (a car) flattened out at 190 (km/h).")
• flog:
  • to sell something ("Where's your car?" "I flogged it off to Mick")
  • to steal something ("Where did you get the car?" "I flogged it off Mick")
  • to treat something roughly ("Why is your car dented?" "I took it out bush gave it a flogging")
  • to beat someone up ("Did you see the bruises on Mick's face?" "Yeah he copped a real flogging")
  • to masturbate
• Football - Can mean anything from rugby league to Australian rules to rugby union to soccer, depending on where you are and who you're talking to.
• footpath – any well-used walkway, but in particular a paved walkway running parallel to a street or road, and known in other countries as a sidewalk or pavement.
• fuck-all, Sweet F-A or Sweet Fanny Adams - none; nothing; extremely little; often put in the phrase "You've got two chances: fuck-all and none."; can be modified to "three fifths of fuck all" to add emphasis
• fugly - fucking ugly; usually a term of astonished admiration, often applied to unattractive dogs but it can be used of people in a derogatory sense

G

• gammon or gammon job (mainly used in the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland) – A word derived from a similar sounding Aboriginal word meaning "invented" or "not true". As in "that's gammon mate" or "no mate, that's a gammon job there".
• garn – go on; going; for example "Garn y'mongrel."; see carn
• ganda or gander - to take a look at something. As in "Let's go take a gander next door.'
• g'day – good day; the typical Aussie greeting generally used by Broad Australian English speakers, the working class and blue collar workers
• goon
  • cheap cask wine, also can mean the bag containing the wine also know as a goon bag
  • another name for a man, woman, or animal with an ape appearance
• grouse – great; common in Victoria
• gun – (adj) of excellent ability; above-average; derived from shearing – the fastest shearer in the shed was the gun-shearer;

H

• Hills Hoist – a type of rotary clothes-line; Hills was the designer and original manufacturer of the rotary clothes-line.
• Harold Holt - salt (no longer commonly used but is still understood by most Australians); to disappear, for example "He's done a Harold Holt", or 'He has disappeared', referring to the Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt who disappeared while swimming at a beach in 1967.
• heaps - a lot; very. To "give someone heaps" is to pour mockery and/or abuse on them.
• holey dooley - a term used when something out of the ordinary happens
• hoo roo - goodbye
• how ya going - how have you been/how are you doing
• humpy - small Aboriginal shelter, or any temporary outdoor shelter

I

• idiot box – a television set

J

• jet – to go somewhere in a hurry
• jaded- feeling hungover or suffering the after effects of drugs

K

• kick on – partying on after a discotheque or night club has finished, usually involving more drinking and/or drug taking.
• kenoath - contraction of "fucking oath"
• knackered – tired, exhausted

[edit] L to P

L

• light globe – an incandescent light bulb; globe is no longer commonly used in this sense outside Australia; bulb is sometimes also heard in Australia.

M

• manchester – household linen
• mangkin - a common, often Western Australian expression used to describe the behaviour of someone on drugs. Usually magic mushrooms, which are native to Western Australia.
• milk bar - a shop where milk-shakes and other refreshments can be bought. In Victoria and New South Wales is a local shop where basic groceries such as bread, milk, and other everyday household goods can also be bought. Known as a deli in South Australia and Western Australia and as a corner shop in Queensland (also a "convenience store") and Tasmania. (In States other than SA and WA, "deli" retains the usual international usage of delicatessen.)
• moll – Used to describe a person or persons who have prepetrated an act, spoken words, or generally just 'done something' to annoy the user of this word. 'Mole' can be attributed to both males and females - "God she annoys me. She's such a moll." Usually mistakenly written as 'mole'
• mozz or to put the mozz on - jinx
• mungin' - (IPA: /maŋ.ɪn/) to eat veraciously; to perform oral sex, for example, "I was mungin' on her."
• munt - to vomit
• munted – either broken, mangled or state of inebriation, generally from drugs
• muntyhead – one who likes to get munted

N

• natio - nationality
• nature strip (or verge in Western Australia) – a lawn or plantation in the road reserve between the property boundary and the street
• no worries or nurries – you're welcome; no problem; that's all right; etc.
• noon – as opposed to the British English midday. Also used in American English
• norcs - tits
• no wuckin' furries – a spoonerism of no fuckin' worries, has the same usage as no worries. Used where the original version might be regarded as offensive. Sometimes shortened to no wuckers.

O

• okey-dokey – ok
• on ya bike – as in get on your bike and piss off. A way to tell someone to leave - "Off you go, on ya bike.

P

• pearler – an excellent example of something (e.g. mate, that new car of yours is a pearler.).
• perv - short for pervert ("That old fella's a bit of a perv") it can also mean having a look, often but not always, at a member of the desired sex.
• pez – something of poor value or perceived to be less worthy than others; someone who acts in a negative way; derived from peasant
• pinged – caught doing something wrong, esp. by an umpire in the game of Australian rules football when penalised for holding the ball.
• pissed off or pissed – angry. Pissed can also mean drunk.
• piss in the woods - simple, easy
• piss-fart around – to waste time
• piss off – to get lost; to leave
• piss-weak or piss-poor – weak; ineffectual; pathetic; unfair: a general purpose negative
• pissing down – used to describe heavy rainfall.
• poofteenth - A minuscule amount, a smidgen.
• poofter beer - a derogratory term for any of a variety of can and bottled pre-mixed coloured alcoholic drinks if drunk by a man.
• port – any form of hand luggage, especially a school bag, only used in Queensland and to some extent in New South Wales; from portmanteau
• pov or povo – cheap looking; from poverty

[edit] Q to Z

R

• ratshit – broken, not working properly; extremely drunk
• rego - vehicle registration
• righto - okay or that's right. Can also be said as rigthio.
• ripper - (n) something that is excellent; similar to beauty; for example, "You little ripper."; possibly from rippa - Japanese (りっぱ), meaning splendid, fine or elegant possibly through contact with Japanese pearl divers living in Australia during the late 19th Century
• the ripper's - the stripper's
• rip-snorta - something that is excellent; a fart
• rort – a scam, especially the exploitation of rules or laws; used mostly to describe the actions of politicians. (Also lurk as a noun.)
• rough as guts - (adj) rough, bumpy, of poor quality

S

• satched - to be extremely wet, usually from being caught in the rain; from saturated
• scab
  • to take something with no direct recompense, somewhat like bum or cadge (UK),
  • to dob someone in
  • a union worker who goes to work when the company is on strike
  • a non-union worker that breaks picket lines to work when the normal workers are on strike
  • one who is tight with money or possessions
• scrag
  • an unattractive woman. A rough or unkempt woman.
  • holding someone back by the neck or garment. To wring someone's neck.
• scrag fight - a fight between two women, usually physical.
• sealed road – a road covered in bitumen, equivalent to paved road in British English.
• servo – a service station
• shame or shame job – based on Aboriginal culture, where shame is a major factor, the word and phrase has been adapted in to general English in areas with a large Aboriginal population. As in "oh shame job man" and "shame, shame". Usually used by school-aged children.
• she'll be right - it will be okay; a general pacifier
• sheltershed, lunch shed, weather shed or undercover area – in most States a simple detached building for the protection of school children from hostile weather
• Shiralect- Variation of English spoken in the Sutherland Shire where the accent is much thicker than general but different from broad. Examples include "Gazza"(to do something extraudordinary), turning the phrase "oi" into "oia" and general additions of either a, o, or e/i, when used in the vocative to call someone's name. Greetings leave out the "hello" and are generally the name with the addition of those vowells.
• shirty - polite version of shitty or pissed off, commonly when the person is getting angry or upset over something trivial, something against their plans or is being contradicted. ie "Don't get all shirty at me just because you bought the wrong beer"
• shit-hot – exclamation, excellent
• shits - can be used in several expressions including: shits me (or more strongly shits me to tears) and gives me the shits all meaning a combination of "annoys me" and "makes me angry."
• showbag - full of shit, coming from the showbags sold at the Sydney & Melbourne Easter Shows.
• shout – to treat someone or to pay for something, especially a round of drinks
• shonky – poorly made, of low quality; dishonest
• sick – very good; usually intensified in the phrase fully sick
• sickie – a day of absence from work, sometimes due to feigned illness. To "chuck a sickie" is to partake in such a day.
• slaughtered - either extremely tired or drunk
• smoko – a short break from work, named for a "smoking break" but synonymous with coffee break. Used to describe any short break from work or activity, even if it does not include smoking.
• spare – very angry or upset e.g. "He went spare."
• spewin – (short for spewing) angry/disappointed eg. "I can't believe I missed the footy last night, I was so spewin!".
• spit the dummy – to throw a temper tantrum; in reference to a baby who becomes so angry, that he spits the dummy out of his mouth
• spruik – to promote or sell something; cf. British flog
• squiz – a look, as in "Take a squiz at the new house."
• steak - a story irrelevant to the current line of conversation.
• stella - good, pleasing, thanks
• stickybeak – to nose around
• Strine or Strayan – Australian spoken English. From the Broad Australian pronunciation of "Australian". is an alternative. In the same vein, Straya is an attempt to express the pronunciation of "Australia".
• stuffed – exhausted
• stung - hung over; disappointed
• super – short for superannuation, the Australian term for a private retirement pension, equates to the US 401k.
• suss
  • suspicious; suspect
  • to figure something out, to uncover something/someone
  • to have something worked out, to have a plan
• sweet – fine, good

T

• ta - thank you, derived from infant speech
• tall poppy syndrome - the attitude taken by common people of resenting those who, due to social, political or economic reasons act egotistical and flaunt their success without humility
• thongs - rubber sandles, flip flops, jandles.
• toey - on edge, nervous, distracted; horny
• togs - Swimming costume (Queensland)
• too right – that is correct
• traficator – blinkers, car indicators

U

• U-ie (IPA: /ˈjʉː.iː/), less commonly U-bolt or U-burn – a U-turn; to chuck a u-ie is to make a u-turn
• un-Australian – considered to be an example of unacceptable behaviour or policy in Australia or undertaken by Australians particularly when it violates cultural or traditional values (Funnily enough, this term rarely seems to be used by anyone outside of politics or current affairs shows.)
• unco - clumsy, uncoordinated

W

• wag or wagging – to skip school or work to do something else on someone else's time
• walkabout - meaning to take a journey of significant duration with no specific destination. Originally a reference to the migration of indigenous Australians living a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
• wank - to masturbate (used for males only)
• wing - to pass, to give; to undertake a task unprepared - "Have you prepared a speech? Nah, I'll just wing it."
• What do you think this is, bush week? - disbelieving response to some one you think is trying to con you. Predominately used in Queensland. eg. "The car's in a great condition." (obviously it's not) "What do you think this is, bush week?"
• Whatever you reckon - a dismissive to indicate that a person is lying or talking rubbish. Sometimes shortened to "whatever" co-existing with American usage and meaning of the same term.
• whinge - similar to crying, but more commonly used for adults. In particular a "whinger" is someone who disagrees in an annoying fashion.

Y

• yakka - usually preceded by hard. Hard work. Also the grasstree Xanthorrhoea.
• youse – you (plural)

[edit] Old, declining or expired slang

Main article: Old, declining or expired Australian vocabulary

Many distinctive Australian words have been driven to or near to extinction in recent decades under the homogenising influence of mass media and imported culture, because of changes in fashion, or have fallen into disuse as society changes. Those who like or use these words regret their passing but informal vocabulary is by nature ephemeral. Others who use these words do so ironically.

[edit] Rhyming slang

Main article: Australian rhyming slang

A common feature of traditional Australian English was rhyming slang, based on Cockney rhyming slang and imported by migrants from London in the 19th century. Rhyming slang consists of taking a phrase, usually of two words, which rhymes with a commonly used word, then using the first word of the phrase to represent the word. In recent years this feature of Australian English has declined under the impact of mass popular culture.

[edit] Term pertaining to specific topics

Australians use many unique terms to refer to items of clothing and various vehicles. There are also a number Australian English sporting terms. A lot of slang terms relate to alcoholic drink, drinking and drunkenness. There are a number of terms which refer to body parts, refer to the toilet and what one does there and which have a sexual connotation; many of these can tend to cause offense. It is also common amongst Australians to shorten the names of places, people, companies, etc. Some of these terms are regional others are in relatively widespread use. Many terms derive from company or brand names others derive from rhyming slang or the use the use of diminutives.

Australians use a variety of colourful terms to refer to people. These terms may indicate such things as the person's ethnicity, the place where the person resides, the social status of the person, the person's behaviour, etc. Many of these words occur in other English dialects, especially New Zealand English, whilst others are unique to Australian English.

Where foodstuffs are concerned, Australian English tends to be more closely related to British than to American vocabulary. In a few cases, however, Australian English uses the same terms as American English, whereas the British use the equivalent French terms. This is possibly due to a fashion that emerged in mid-19th Century Britain of adopting French nouns for foodstuffs. There are also occasions when Australians use words or terms which are not common in other forms of English except sometimes in New Zealand English.

There is some regional variation when it comes to Australian English terms for food and drink. For example the term for processed pork can vary from state to state and even from city to city. Other terms which vary significantly from state to state are the terms for beer glasses.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is made up of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Each have their own distinct traditions but share a defence force culture. This culture includes Australian military slang. Some words, such as digger, meaning a soldier, have become widely used by Australians in general. However, most slang used in the ADF is restricted to its personnel, or is widely understood outside Australia.

[edit] Animals

• blowie – a common blowfly
• chook – a chicken, as in chook raffle, also used in New Zealand English
• croc – crocodile
• dish-licker – a dog, often for greyhounds^{[citation needed]}
• dunny budgie – a blowfly
• mozzie or mozzy – a mosquito
• roo – a kangaroo
• yabby – a small Australian freshwater crayfish (from Wembawemba)

[edit] Money

• big bickies - a large sum of money, expensive, well-remunerated

The following nicknames for Australian banknotes derive from their colour.

• blue swimmer – a ten dollar note
• lobster or red lobster - a twenty dollar note
• pineapple – a fifty dollar note
• grey nurse - an old one hundred dollar note (no longer used since introduction of green polymer $100 note in 1996)

[edit] Cigarettes

• dart
• durry – especially a hand rolled cigarette; possibly from Durrie Rug, which is normally stored rolled up, from the Jaipur region of India
• fag – as in British English; due to American media influence this term can also refer to a homosexual man
• marg

[edit] Placeholders

Australians use a number of placeholders for objects whose names are unknown or forgotten.

• doover – perhaps from "It'll do for now."
  • doover-malaky
  • doover-lacky
  • doover-whatsit
  • hoosey-whatsit
• thingo
  • thingie
  • thingamajig
  • thingameebob
• whatsit
  • whatsername

[edit] The sticks

Australian English has a number of expressions similar to Timbuktu or Waikikamukau for generic far-off places or areas in the countryside which are far from a town or city.

• beyond the black stump
• the back of Bourke
• woop-woop (IPA: /wʊp.wʊp/)

[edit] See also

• Australian English
• Australian English word use
• List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin
• List of Australian place names of Aboriginal origin

[edit] External links

• ABC Radio National, 1999, Lingua Franca, "Australian English: Australian Identity..."
• Australian National Dictionary Centre
• Australian Word Map (Australian regionalisms)
• Aussie English for beginners — the origins, meanings and a quiz to test your knowledge at the National Museum of Australia.
• ABC National Radio, "Mate, What Next?
• Macquarie Dictionary
• World English Organisation