The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

Pa

pack a wallop: having a strong impact; Strewth, this home-brew packs a wallop!
See wallop for more terms.
pack of galahs: group of disliked people; The bird referred to is the grey‑backed, pink‑breasted cockatoo Eolophus roseicapillus.; first recorded in the 1850s
packing shit: being very scared
paddock: 1 an australian rules football oval; 2 a spectator 's enclosure at a racetrack; first recorded in the 1850s
paddock-basher: an old car, generally unregistered; Used for driving around paddocks or the bush.
panel van: a vehicle like a station wagon; With a single row of seats for the driver and passenger. Also called a panno or shaggin' wagon .
pants man: a womaniser
pansy: effeminate male
papers: cigarette papers; Known in Tas as tissues.
Papunya Tula: an australian aboriginal modern art movement; Papunya Tula is an artist cooperative, owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia.
From Papunya, NT, where the movement began and Tula, a nearby hill and Honey Ant Dreaming site — the first painting was called Honey Ant Dreaming.

The style is based on traditional body and sand painting associated with Dreamings but with a characteristic dot and circle imagery developed from a desire to eliminate sacred-secret symbols.
Popularly referred to as “dot painting ”, credited with bringing Aboriginal art to world attention
Also known as desert art.; formed in 1972
para: very drunk; Aussie abbreviation of paralytic
pash: long passionate kiss
pass in your marbles: to die
Pat Malone: alone; I went to the pub on my Pat Malone; See drinking with the flies and Jimmy Woodser for similar expressions.; rhyming slang: pat malone for alone
pav: pavlova; Named after Anna Pavlova(1881-1931), the Russian ballerina who toured down under in the 1920s.
Her favourite dessert was a soft-centred meringue topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit.; aussie & kiwi slang

Pe

peanut paste: peanut butter; The states of Qld, WA, and SA used to have legislation that prevented the word butter being used for non-dairy products.
pearler: 1 something exceptional or superlative; Her new dress was a real pearler.; 2 in cricket, a very good delivery
perform: to throw a temper tantrum since the 1890s
perk: any fringe benefit of a job; If you want your share of perks, learn the ropes, and all the lurks. A shortened form of perquisite, commonly found in association with the word lurk.
perv: 1 to look lustfully at someone; I was perving on the barmaid.
2 a sexual pervert; Rack off, you dirty old perv.
3 an attractive person; The new barmaid is a bit of a perv.
4 to look at or gawk, not in a sexual way; They were perving at the couple fighting.
5 an act of voyeurism; I'm just having a bit of a perv.
pester: to annoy someone
petrol head: a car enthusiast

Pi

pick a winner: to pick a large piece of snot from the nose with your finger; Referring to infantile games of snot comparison.
pigs arse: strong disagreement; Pigs arse! I won't do that …
pike: 1 to let down or abandon someone; Don't pike on me now.
2 to go back on an arrangement; He piked out on the deal.
piker: someone who doesn 't want to fit in with others socially
pill: a football aussie rules and rugby slang
pineapple ∼ get the rough end of the pineapple: get a raw deal, be treated badly
ping: 1 to penalise for an infringement of the rules; I got pinged for a high tackle.
2 of a racehorse , to put on a sudden burst of speed; Turning on to the straight, she pinged for the finish.
pissant: 1 in a negative sense , an annoying little bastard; I'm sick of pissant politicians.
2 in a positive sense , a small but aggresive person; Hence the phrase game as a pissant, meaning very brave.
3 drunk as a pissant; Means extremely drunk.
4 to waste time in frivolous activity; We were pissanting around.; since the 1940s
piss: 1 urine , urination; I'm hangin' for a piss.
2 alcohol , especially beer; Let's go to the pub and get on the piss.
2 a party where there is plenty of alcohol; What a piss up, there was heaps of grog!
3 a very easy task; It's a piece of piss to do that…
4 a piss-take; We were just taking the piss.
It is recommended that no piss be taken until you know your friend well and understand what makes them laugh or angry.
Then you take the piss and so help them feel better about whatever is troubling them in their life.
Targets of a piss-take are expected to reply in kind. An insulting joke in return increases an Aussie's appreciation of you.
5 used as an intensifier; That was piss-awful!
6 a substitute for the word hell; He scared the piss out of me.
piss away: to waste or squander; He pissed away his inheritance.
An alternate expression is piss it up against the wall.
piss in my pocket: to act ingratiatingly; Stop pissing in my pocket!; since the 1940s
piss it in: to win easily; First time we played we pissed it in.
piss on: to defeat; Last time we played they pissed on us.
pisser: 1 lavatory; Hang on, I'm just going to the pisser.
2 something very funny; That story is an absolute pisser!
plant: to hide; Referring to articles, animals, etc, often stolen.; colonial flash language
play funny buggers: fool around
plonk: wine , often inexpensive; From the French vin blanc, meaning white wine.
See cask, red ned, and goon for more information.; since wwii

Po

pokies: gambling machines in a club or pub
polly: politician aussie diminutive
pom ∼ pommy: a person from england; Originally derisive, the term is now sometimes bestowed affectionately.
Here's my mate, the pommy bastard!
pommy's towel: extremely dry; Dry as a pommy's towel!
pong: bad smell
poofter: homosexual male
porky: a lie , an untruth rhyming slang: pork pie for lie
pork chop ∼ carry on like a pork chop: to make a fuss, to behave in a silly or excited way; first recorded in 1975
port: suitcase , school bag; A contraction of the word portmanteau.; aussie contraction
possie: a position; You get the drinks, I'll grab a good possie.; aussie diminutive
postie: postal delivery worker; aussie diminutive
pot: 1 a small draught beer; Served in a 285ml glass in Qld and Vic.
See beer for more information.; 2 marijuana
See yarndi for more information.
pox doctors clerk: flashy overdressing; He was dressed up like a pox doctors clerk.
It is hard to explain why this little-known and uncommon employment group is a byword for flashy overdressing.
prang: a motor vehicle accident
prezzies: gifts , presents aussie diminutive
prothonotary: one of the principal officials of a supreme court; Who has a responsibility to issue writs, and also has some judicial powers.

Pu

pub: any hotel
public servant: a person employed by a government authority; In colonial times a convict was often called a public servant, and this was later applied to anyone who worked for the government. In 1843 Charles Rowcroft in Tales of the Colonies wrote:

I must warn you that we never speak of the ‘convicts’ in this country by that term. We always call them ‘government men’ or on some occasions ‘prisoners’, but we never use the term ‘convict’ which is considered by them as an insulting term.
pull your socks up: improve personal performance
punt: 1 to bet; At the races or the tab, aussies love to get on the punt!
2 to make an attempt; The equivalent of have a go.
3 a type of kick in footy; Abbreviated form of drop kick & punt.
pussyfoot around: trying too hard not to offend
put the shits up: alarming someone
put the wind up: urging someone

aussie acronyms

P & C: parents and citizens association
PBS: pharmaceutical benefits scheme
PG: parental guidance recommended
PM: prime minister
PMG: postmaster-general
PNG: papua new guinea

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.

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 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.

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

let stalk strine!

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What are sex? What is an egg nishner? And where checque etcher londger ray?

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Australian Colours

The Australian Independent Colour Standard AS 2700 was created in 1985. It is used in choosing colour schemes in the industrial, architectural, and decorative areas.

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The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

The Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

Pa

Pe

Pi

Po

Pu

The Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English

The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English