The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

Ea

earbash: nagging; The fellow who backs you into a corner, and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks, is an earbasher.

Professional earbashers can be found in local government and parliamentary circles, where they spend most of their time earbashing each other, and annoy us less than the amateurs.
Amateurs are to be avoided. Go to another pub.

john o'grady (nino culotta) 1965
eastern brown snake: Pseudonaja textilis, meaning ‘false cobra’ is found throughout the eastern states.
It is day-active, about 2 metres long, yellowish‑brown to almost black.
Nervous, reacts quickly. Very dangerous.
eastern stater: a term for a person from the eastern states of oz; Used in WA and SA.
easybeat: a person who is easily beaten; In the plural it refers to a team who are probably the cellar dwellers.
eat shit: a harsh expression of abuse; Commonly used in triumph over a competitor.

Ec

echo: a small returnable beer bottle; Originally they were washed & re-used.
Nowadays they are recycled, but the term is still in use.; south australian slang
economic rationalism: the free-market approach to economic management; This approach is typically reflected in the adoption of privatisation, deregulation, ‘user pays’, and low public spending.; Most Aussies are surprised to discover that this is an aussie term. The corresponding term in Britain is Thatcherism, and in the United States Reaganomics.; since 1985
egg flip: a tip; As at the races.; rhyming slang from the 1960s: egg flip for tip
eh: a tag used at the end of a sentence inviting assent; Wasn't that lucky, eh?
I was going down the shops eh
And I ran into Johnno eh
Hadn't seen him for weeks eh It is used repetitously at the end of virtually every statement, without any sense of it being a question.; used in qld & nz
eighteen: 1 an eighteen-gallon keg of beer; Generally the size put on for a party.; ocker slang
2 a team in australian rules football; the Carlton eighteen; aussie rules

El

elastics ∼ elastic skippy: a girls' schoolyard game; A long loop of elastic is held between the legs just above the ankles of two of the participants, while a third performs a set of trick manoeuvres.
After completion of a set without mistakes the elastic is moved higher, thus increasing the difficulty.
electorate: a district, represented by a member of parliament; One who has been elected by the people who live there.
elephants: drunk rhyming slang from 1850: elephants trunk for drunk.
El Niño: a climatic event; The original name, El Niño de Navidad, traces its origin centuries back to Peruvian fishermen, who named the weather phenomenon in reference to the newborn Christ, alluding to its appearance off South America at Christmas, which occurs on average every four to five years.

It is the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), associated with a band of warm water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. Involving a rapid warming of the surface of the southern Pacific Ocean causing a change in normal wind and current movements, it has far-reaching and often disastrous effects on the world's weather, in particular causing drought on the eastern coast of Australia. The counterpart is La Niña, the positive phase of the ENSO, associated with high rainfall over eastern Australia.; spanish: the christmas child
Elvis ∼ more hits than Elvis: a car with many dents and scratches; A car could be described as having had more hits than Elvis.

Em

Emerald City: a nickname for sydney
emma chisit ?: how much is it ?; Probably the most famous piece of strine ever.; strine
empties: empty beer bottles
emu-apple: owenia acidula; A small tree with a rounded crown of dark green leaves, and small rounded, red, highly acidic fruits, found in the north-eastern parts of Australia.
emu-bob: 1 a person who clears an area after a burning-off job; 2 a person who picks up discarded betting tickets; 3 a line of police combing an area for forensic evidence Also called emu parade, emu patrol, emu walk, and in WA, an emu stalk.
Enzed: new zealand; Hence Enzedder, a New Zealander.

Er

erky: revolting since the 1960s
eskimo pie: an ice-cream confection between wafers a trademark used generically
esky: portable insulated container for food and drink; The quintessential item of the aussie lifestyle.; a trademark used generically
esky lid: disparaging term used by surfies for a bodyboard; Alluding to the similarity of a body board to the aforementioned item.
Hence, a bodyboarder is called an esky lidder.; surfie slang
euchre: 1 to outwit, to get the better of someone; 2 to ruin or spoil; That's euchred it
Hence, euchred means beaten, defeated; down and out.; nearly obsolete slang
eureka: rebellion and stockade; Instigated by gold miners at Eureka Flat in Ballarat, Vic, who revolted against the colonial authority of the United Kingdom.

It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which was fought between miners and the colonial forces of Australia and named for the stockade structure built by miners during the conflict.; The rebellion resulted in the deaths of at least 27 people, the majority of whom were rebels.; 3 december 1854
everything that opens and shuts: all possible embellishments; Also in the form:
All the bells and whistles
ex-govie: a house built by the government but now privately owned act slang
exy: expensive; Those shoes look pretty exy to me.

aussie acronyms

EDT: eastern daylight time
ENSO: el niño-southern oscillation
EST: eastern standard time

Welcome to Australia!

This is a peculiar country where the principles of culture appear to have been turned upside down. Australians seem blissfully unaware of the achievements of their intellectuals… yet they will celebrate long dead horses, yobbo sportsmen, and bushrangers.

They often forget the words of their national anthem… yet it would be wrong to say they are not patriotic, as a song about a suicidal sheep thief seems to instil them with a great deal of pride.

If they like you, they will not give you compliments. Instead, they might call you names like bastard or drongo — and then laugh at all the silly things you have done. If you have red hair, you might be called Bluey. If you are tall, you might be called Shorty. If you are quiet, you might be called Rowdy.

There is no better way of life in the world than that of the Australian.
I firmly believe this.

The grumbling, growling, cursing, profane, laughing, beer drinking, abusive, loyal-to-his-mates Australian is one of the few free men left on this earth.

He fears no one, crawls to no one, bludgers on no one, and acknowledges no master.

Learn his way. Learn his language. Get yourself accepted as one of him; and you will enter a world that you never dreamed existed.

And once you have entered it, you will never leave it.

Australian history is almost always picturesque; indeed, it is also so curious and strange, that it is itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer and so it pushes the other novelties into second and third place.

It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies; and all of a fresh new sort, no mouldy old stale ones.

It is full of surprises and adventures, the incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened.
Mark Twain, 1897

first australians

Long before a word of English was ever spoken in Australia, the Aboriginal languages were heard all over the continent.

Each group or mob has its own language, but those languages spoken close to what later became the main centres of European population were those which have had the most influence on modern Aussie English.

Aboriginal words are likely to have been absorbed into Aussie English as local leaders from both native groups and colonists tried to find some tentative common ground; and as the new arrivals sought to find names for the strange new things they were seeing.

Aboriginal words common in Aussie English include yakka, meaning work–common usage is the collocation ‘hard yakka’, and cooee, first used by Aboriginal people calling each other through the bush.

Also of indigenous origin is bung, from the language Yagara in the Brisbane region, meaning "dead" and by extension "broken" or "useless".

Many place names are Aboriginal — the capital Canberra is so‑named because it means "meeting place" in Ngunnawal, the traditional language of the Ngunnawal and Gandangara peoples.

Commonly used Aboriginal words include many animal names, such as kookaburra, koala, wallaby and dingo.

immigrant influences

Whether convicts or willing migrants, the Europeans who found their way to Australia from the eighteenth century onwards came from a wide range of different groups.

At that time, there were great differences between different British English dialects, so that convicts from different regions of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland would all have spoken very differently.
Some would not have spoken English at all – being Irish or Scots Gaelic or Welsh speakers.

To understand each other, these groups would have begun to create a common language, and words from various dialects would have become part of a new slang and new idioms.

the gold rush days

This era brought words such as fossick into common usage.

The Gold Rush Days

the bushrangers

Many terms come from the bushranger tradition, such as bush telegraph, bail up, and game as Ned Kelly.

the first world war

WWⅠ added another layer of slang, such as dinkum , meaning genuine or real.

Australian English is peppered with unique slang words and particular types of phraseology such as strine and ocker.

diminutives in australia

The use of diminutive forms of words such as arvo for afternoon or barbie for barbecue is common. Some words, such as ute, from utility vehicle, a car with a tray back, have become universal.

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The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

The Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

Ea

Ec

El

Em

Er

The Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English

The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English