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AUSTRALIAN WORDS


​AKUBRA - a shallow crowned wide brimmed hat, especially one made from felted rabbit fur.

ARSAPEEK- inverted

BABBLING BROOK- a cook

BANDICOOT- a small marsupial animal differing from the Kangaroo in many ways, particularly in tail (which resembles the rat).

BATTLER - a person with few natural advantages, who works hard and with little reward, struggles for a livelihood and who displays courage.

BERLEY - is ground-bait scattered by an angler in the water to attract fish to a line or lure. Anglers use a variety of baits for berley, such as bread, or fish heads and guts.

BINGLE - a fight or skirmish; a collision. Bingle is perhaps from Cornish dialect bing 'a thump or blow'.

BLUDGER - someone who is lazy or doesn’t work

BODGY - poor quality

BOGAN - an uncultured and unsophisticated person; a boorish and uncouth person.

BOGEY - to swim or bathe.

BOMBORA -wave that forms over a submerged offshore reef or rock, sometimes (in very calm weather or at high tide) merely swelling but in other conditions breaking heavily and producing a dangerous stretch of broken water. The word is now commonly used for the reef or rock itself.

BONZER - an adjective meaning 'surpassingly good, splendid, great'. The word is also used as a noun meaning ‘something (or someone) that excites admiration by being surpassingly good of its kind’, and as an adverb meaning 'beautifully, splendidly'.

BOSKER- good; first class.

BROLGA- a bluish-grey bird of the crane specie, with very long legs.

BRUMBY- wild horse with long matted mane and tail and of ill-breeding.

CAGMAG- scraps of food

CLINER- young girl

CARK - to die; to break down; to fail. Also spelt ‘kark’ and often taking the form ‘cark it.’ The word is probably a figurative use of an earlier Australian sense of cark meaning 'the caw of a crow', which is imitative. First recorded in the 1970s.

COBBER - friend, a companion. Also used as a form of address (g’day cobber!). The word probably derives from the Yiddish word chaber 'comrade'.

COOLIBAH - a term for any of several eucalypts, especially the blue-leaved Eucalyptus microtheca found across central and northern Australia, a fibrous-barked tree yielding a durable timber and occurring in seasonally flooded areas. Coolibah is first recorded in the 1870s.

CROOK - sick or ill

CULOSIS - a resigned expression of frustration, “whatever” - used since early 2008 on the east coast

DARDY - the best

DRONGO - a stupid or incompetent person

DUFFER- a fool

DUNNA - duvet

ETCH - suspicious or sketchy

FAIR DINKUM - an exclamation to proclaim something as true or genuine

FESTY - dirty or disgusting

FIZGIG- Police informer

FLAMING GALAH - an insult used to describe a fool or an idiot

FOSSICK - to prospect, for example for gold; hence to search, to rummage. For example "fossicking through the kitchen drawers"

FROTHING - very keen

FURPHY - a rumor or story, that’s untrue or absurd

GALAH – an Australian cockatoo with a reputation for not being bright, hence a galah is also a stupid person.

GUNYAH- a blackfellow's humpy, built of bark, sometimes around a tree, but not always, tapering from a peak at the top to a bell-shape at the
bottom.

HARD YAKKA -hard work

HOOOROO - see you later/goodbye

HOOLY DOOLEY - a term used when something out of the ordinary happens, an exclamation of surprise; similar "good heavens", "my goodness", "good grief", etc.

HUGHIE - the rain god, and the appeal with a request for heavy rain - the phrase was first recorded in 1912.

HUMDINGER- a proficient person

ILLYWHACKER - a small-time confidence trickster. The word is probably formed from illy (with the same meaning) which is likely an alteration of the Australian word spieler meaning 'a person who engages in sharp practice; a swindler, originally a card sharper'.

KARRIKINS - derived in the 1830s from the Western Australian Noongar word ‘karrik’ meaning smoke. Karrikins describes a substance in plants that stimulates seed germination and seedling growth after bushfires.

KAURI- a yellow valuable wood.

LAIRY - flashily dressed; showy; socially unacceptable. The term is a transferred use of British slang ‘lairy’ (or leery) meaning 'knowing, conceited'.

LAMINGTON - a square of sponge cake coated in chocolate icing and desiccated coconut.

LARRIKIN - person who acts with apparently careless disregard for social or political conventions; a person who is unsophisticated but likeable and good-hearted, 'a rough diamond'; a joker.

LUMME- a mild oat

MIRIN - admiring

MIZZLE- to leave hurriedly

MOTZA - large sum of money, especially as won in gambling; a fortune; a great amount.

MURR-MA - to walk along the water searching for something with your feet

MUSO - anyone who plays in a band at a pub is referred to as a muso. Most of the time they get a small amount of money and free beer for performing at their local watering hole (pub).

MUSTER - gathering together of (frequently widely dispersed) livestock in one place for the purpose of branding, counting, etc.; a round-up of stock.

OCKER - an uncouth, uncultivated, or aggressively boorish Australian male, stereotypical in speech and manner; a typical or average. Ocker is also used as an adjective meaning characteristically Australian; uncouth, uncultured, or aggressively boorish in a stereotypically Australian manner.

PANNIKIN- Small drinking vessel

PIKELET - small pancake

PLONK - Cheap wine. An example of a word of Australian derivation adopted in Britain, and elsewhere, with little awareness of its origin.

RAZOO - a non-existent coin of trivial value. Razoo, first recorded in 1919, is used in negative contexts only, especially as to not have a razoo, and to not have a brass razoo 'to have nothing; to be penniless'.

RIDGEY-DIDGE - legitimate; the real deal

PIKELET - small pancake

RORT - to scam, misuse, or to treat fraudulently. This significant Australian word derives from wrought, an archaic past participle of the verb to work.

SARVO - this afternoon

SCHMICK - smart, stylish; excellent. Schmick (sometimes shmick) is a relatively recent addition to Australian English. The form smick is found once in the written record in the 1970s, and may be a blend of the words smart and slick.

SEACHANGE - significant change of lifestyle, especially one achieved by moving from the city to a seaside town. It derives from SeaChange (1998–2000), the name of a popular Australian television series.

STOUSH - fighting; violence; a brawl or fight. Probably from British dialect (Scots) stashie, stushie (and variants) ‘an uproar; a commotion, disturbance, quarrel’.

STRAYA - most native English speakers will pronounce all the syllables in “Australia,” but the Aussies say “Straya” instead.

STREWTH - used to express surprise or dismay

SUSS - suspicious

TOSSER - a jerk (and variation on "wanker").

TRADIE - the word tradie derives from the full word “tradesman.” Tradesman is a noun for all those people who work doing a trade, or a job that requires particular skills. For example, electricians, plumbers and carpenters have trade jobs.

UNNA - widespread

WHITEANT - (verb) to criticize something to deter somebody from buying it. A car dealer might whiteant another dealer's cars or a real estate salesman might whiteant another agent's property

WOWSER - puritanical or censorious person, in particular a teetotaller or person opposed to alcohol

YAKKA - work, strenuous labour. The word is used especially in the phrase “hard yakka.” Yakka first used in the 1840s as a verb meaning ‘to work’, and it derives from yaga meaning ‘work’ in the Yagara language of the Brisbane region.
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