it's the

Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

P

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
packing shit: being very scared
paddock: 1 an australian rules football oval; 2 a spectator's enclosure at a racetrack
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
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

P

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
aussie slang 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: annoy someone
petrol head: a car enthusiast

P

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.
aussie slang 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 to play a joke on someone
Sorry 'bout the mess, we were just taking the piss.
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! aussie slang 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 underworld slang
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.
aussie slang since wwii

P

pokies: gambling machines in a club or pub
polly: politician
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
No rain,the bush is as 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
port: suitcase, school bag
A contraction of the word portmanteau.
possie: a position
You get the drinks, I'll grab a good possie.
postie: postman
pot: 1 a small draught beer
Served in a 285ml glass in Qld and Vic.
See beer for more information.
2 marijuana
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
prothonotary: one of the principal officials of a supreme court
Who has a responsibility to issue writs, and also has some judicial powers.

P

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
PNG: papua new guinea

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.