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Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

L

lacky band: an elastic band
lag: 1 originally, to transport a convict from britain to australia
After being free, a convict was known as an old lag.
2 to report someone to the authorities
Someone who does this is known as a lagger.
lagerphone: a traditional aussie folk music percussion instrument
Made from a stake of wood to which beer bottle caps have been loosely nailed, and banged to the ground in time to the music.
laid-back: relaxed, informal
lair: a flashily dressed young man of brash and vulgar behaviour
A show-off, also known as a mug lair.
aussie slang since the 1920s
lairise: to behave like a lair
aussie slang since the 1940s
lairy: flashy in a vulgar way
An aussie adaption of a Cockney slang term, where the meaning was more positive, meaning wise or knowing.
aussie slang since the 1890s
Landie ∼ Lannie: a landrover
aussie diminutive
land of the long weekend: australia
land of the wrong white crowd: 1 new zealand; 2 the suburb of bondi, sydney
Heavily populated by Kiwis and Poms.
lambing down: extracting the entire pay packet of a seasonal worker
Practiced by publicans who kept their customers drunk until they had knocked down their pay cheques. This reprehensible activity was commonplace in the outback in days of yore.
The original meaning of lambing down is to tend ewes during lambing time.
lamington: sponge cake
The sponge is cut into squares, dipped in chocolate, and covered in shredded coconut.
popular in australia and new zealand
La Niña: the reverse of an el niño
An ocean-atmosphere phenomenon, part of the broader El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern.
Normally associated with higher than average winter, spring and early summer rainfall over much of Australia.
See El Niño for more information
spanish: the little girl
lappies: circuits of a street block in a car
Usually for the purpose of entertainment.
Chiefly a Qld term, elswhere known as blockies or bog laps.
larrikin: a good-natured, independant and wild-spirited person
Someone with little regard for authority, the antithesis of a wowser.
In last decades of the 19th century larrikins flourished, and at first they were not loveable people, what we know today as a teenage delinquent.
Their gangs or pushes operated openly: they blocked the footpaths, jostled passers-by, made obscene remarks to respectable women, and spat on the clothes of well-dressed men. They beat up and robbed drunks and Chinese. But they were different from the roughs of Britain.
The journalist John Stanley James described them this way:

One marked difference between the Melbourne larrikin and his compeers elswhere is his extreme boldness that comes from self-confidence, of young men and women who will not be confined, and contempt of authorities.
In Europe, the 'rough' avoids the neighborhood of police courts. He loves not to be known by magistrates and detectives.
But here, the larrikin not only chaffs and annoys the policeman on his beat, but daily crowds the police court …
Another marked difference is his generally better-fed and better-clothed appearance.

In Sydney it can be argued that the larrikins were a left-over from convict times, but they flourished in all cities, particularly in Melbourne, which had only a faint convict heritage. The larrikin spirit continues today.; aussie slang since the 1860s
lash: an attempt
I'll have a lash at it.
lash out: spending spree
laughing: a favourable or fortunate position
One more result like that and you'll be laughing.
aussie slang since the 1960s
laughing gear: the mouth
Wrap your laughing gear around this sanga.
Laura Norda: law and order
strine
lay-by: a way of purchasing something
Usually by making a small deposit, and subsequentially paying instalments –without interest– until the full amount is paid, prior to receiving the goods

L

lead foot: a fast driver
leak: urinate
left in the lurch: abandoned in a time of need
lend of: take advantage of someone's gullibility
You're having a bloody lend of me!
legend: an approbation for a cool person
Mate, you're a bloody legend!
leggie: 1 a leg spin delivery
Leg spin involves turning a ball off the pitch from the leg-side of a right-handed batsman, to the off-side. It is often described as wrist spin because, unlike off spinners, the revolutions of the ball are generated by the wrist rather than the fingers.; 2 a leg spin bowler
It may be one of the most difficult skills to master in cricket, but a good leg spinner will almost certainly get plenty of wickets.
See offie and flipper for more.
cricket slang
leg opener: alcohol provided to a female
In order to reduce her sexual inhibitions.
lemon: anything that looks alright but is actually unsound
lemony: angry, irritated
Don't go lemony on me...
lend: to play a trick on; to treat like a fool
You're having a lend of me!

L

light on the hill: a symbol of the political objectives of the labor party
See ALP for more information.
lid: an old term for a hat
Now only heard in the phrase dip your lid. An allusion to the Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis who dips his lid upon first meeting his lady-love Doreen published in 1915
like a blue-arsed fly: racing about furiously in a highly agitated state
like a hole in the head: not at all
Would you like some black sausage?
Yeah, like a hole in the head.
A literal translation of a Yiddish metaphor.
like a rat up a drainpipe: with great speed
lingo: language
Watch your lingo in front of the children.
lippy: lipstick
aussie slang since the 1950s
liquid lunch: alcohol, usually beer
Consumed instead of food at lunchtime.
lit up like Luna Park: a reference to the excessive use of electricity
There are fun-parks named Luna Park in both Sydney and Melbourne noted for the lighting displays, which are visible for miles.
Turn some bloody lights off, it's lit up like Luna Park in here!
little aussie battler: a typical member of the working class
The qualifyer little is a wry reference to little Johnny Howard, an aussie Prime Minister back in the 90's, and his attempt to align the term with the lower classes in order to gain votes.

Roughly speaking, there are three kinds of people in this country: the rich, the middle class, and the battlers.

Also known as the aussie battler, or simply the battler
little boys/girls room: the lavatory
aussie slang since the 1880s
littlie: a child
aussie slang since the 1950s
lizard drinking ∼ flat out like a lizard drinking: extremely busy, at top speed

L

lob: 1 to arrive, especially unexpectedly
The rellies lobbed in this arvo.
2 to land
My bag fell and lobbed on the rocks.
3 to throw
Lob the ball over to me.
4 to win a race
He was hoping his horse would lob.
lobby: 1 a lobster
A marine crayfish.; 2 a yabbie
A freshwater crayfish – cherax destructor.
See yabby for more information.
qld slang
local rag: local newspaper
local yokels: the inhabitants of a town, suburb, or the like
lolly: 1 a sweet or piece of confectionary; 2 money
I'm running out of lolly.
aussie slang since the 1850s
lolly ∼ do your lolly: lose your temper
lolly water: carbonated soft drink
London to a brick: an absolute certainty
It's London to a brick it'll rain this arvie.
Technically, the phrase should be London to a brick on, but the word on is always omitted.
longie ∼ long neck: a 750ml bottle of beer
In Qld they prefer the term tallie and in WA a king brown.
aussie diminutive
long paddock: a public road with a grass edge
Used by graziers to feed stock
loo: lavatory
looker: very attractive female

L

lucky country: australia
From the title of an influential book by Donald Horne, written in 1964.
Originally intended as an ironic rebuke, the phrase has ended up being self‑complimentary.
lunch ∼ cut someone's lunch: to make a move on someone's wife or girlfriend
lunch ∼ drop your lunch: to fart
lurk: illegal, underhanded
If you want your share of perks, learn the ropes, and all the lurks.
Commonly found in association with the word perk.

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 Aboriginal origin is bung, from the aboriginal 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.

animals of australia

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.

new australians

The children of those early settlers would have been keen to mark themselves out as Australians, rather than Irish or English, and that meant that new accents and speech patterns developed as quickly as the colony itself did.

It was almost as if an informal Australian school of English and Irish arrivals alike had set itself up. Words which found their way into the language via the convicts include tucker, an Irish word for food, and swag a word from the criminal underworld meaning a parcel of goods taken by a thief, but coming to mean a bushman's bag.

the gold rush days

This era brought words such as fossick into common usage.

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.

While many languages make use of diminutives, Aussie English uses them extensively – there are over 5,000 identified diminutives in use in Australia.