The Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

R

rabbit

a player who is not very good at batting
Also called a bunny, and neither of which are as bad as being the ferret .
cricket slang

rabbito

a hawker of rabbits

rabbit-proof fence

a pest-exclusion fence
The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, also known as the Emu fence, was designed to keep rabbits and other agricultural pests from the east out of the pastoral areas. It consists of three fences:

# 1 crosses the state from north to south,

# 2 is smaller and further west,

# 3 is smaller still and runs east‑west.

In total they stretched 3,256 km, and at the time the 1,833 km #1 fence was the longest unbroken fence in the world. See dog fence for a similar fence constructed between 1901 and 1907

race

1 a fenced passageway for drafting sheep or cattle

2 a passageway for players to access the ground at a football field

racehorse

a thinly rolled tobacco cigarette or marijuana joint

originally prison slang

race off

to seduce someone
He raced her off to the bedroom.

racers

a brief men's swimming costume
See speedos for a full set of synonyms.

rack off!

go away!

Rafferty's rules

no rules at all

rage

a lively party

rainmaker

a very high kick
aussie rules

rapt

pleased, delighted
From the archaic word enrapture.

rare as rocking-horse shit

non-existant or exceedingly scarce

rashie

a lycra garment worn to prevent a rash

surfie slang

ratbag

1 a despicable, untrustworthy person

2 an eccentric person

aussie slang since the 1940s

ratter

one who enters anothers mining claim
With the intention to steal opals, etc. Usually a nocturnal activity.

The cops are coming down hard on ratters!

colonial slang from the opal mining era

rattle your dags

hurry up
We'll be late! Rattle your dags A dag is a lump of excrement-matted wool on a sheep's rear

first recorded in the 1980s

rat shit

feeling unwell

raw prawn

attempt to deceive by feigning ignorance
In other words, something which is difficult to swallow.
Don't come the raw prawn with me, mate. wwii military slang

razoo

worth nothing at all
Commonly used in the expressions
I haven't got a brass razoo
or Not worth a brass razoo. Possibly from sou, a small French coin, or a rahu, from NZ.
wwii soldiers slang

R

reckon!: you bet! absolutely!
Redfern ∼ get off at…: coitus interruptus
Because in Sydney Redfern Station is the last stop before the terminus at Central Station, whereas Melbournites will often get off at Richmond
redback spider: a highly venomous spider
Latrodectus hasseltii, also known as the Australian black widow spider.
It is believed to originate in the deserts of SA and WA, but now found throughout Australia, SE Asia and New Zealand.
The adult female is easily recognised by her spherical black body with a prominent red stripe on the upper side of her abdomen and an hourglass-shaped red/orange streak on the underside.
Females usually have a body length of about 10 mm, while the male is much smaller, being only 3–4 mm long. Mainly nocturnal, the female redback lives in an untidy web in a warm sheltered location, commonly near or inside human residences. It preys on insects, spiders and small vertebrates that become ensnared in its web. It kills its prey by injecting a complex venom through its two fangs when it bites, before wrapping them in silk and sucking out the liquefied insides.
red goshawk: an australian hawk
Probably the rarest endemic bird of prey, Erythrotriorchis radiatus is a large brown bird with a cream head, throat, and red-brown underparts.
It feeds on live prey, mostly other birds and small ground animals, and is found throughout northern and eastern Australia.
red ned: inexpensive red wine
Used to be sold in a flagon, nowadays it is usually sold in a cask
rellie ∼ rello: a relative
rego: motor vehicle registration

R

ridgie didge: the truth, the genuine article
right: as it should be
No worries, she'll be right.
ringer: 1 the fastest shearer in a shearing shed

From an earlier, now obsolete, sense, where a ringer was any person or thing that was superlatively good.
aussie slang since the 1870s 2 a stockman or drover
So called because they ring or circle the stock to keep them together.
aussie slang since the 1900s
ringie: runs the centre of the two-up ring
When all bets are placed the ringie places the pennies on the kip, tails up, and the boxer gives the call:
Come In Spinner
ring in: 1 a substitute racehorse or greyhound
A racecourse deception to obtain favourable odds.
Also called a ringtail.
racing slang since the 1930s; 2 in two-up, to switch coins
By substituting a double-sided coin for a genuine one.
gambling slang since 1918
ripped: affected by drugs or alcohol
ripper: really great, fantastic
rizzle: a returned services club

The Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Defence Force.
These licensed clubs were established to provide hospitality for war veterans and a place to build on their comradeship by providing bar and dining facilities, and have areas for two-up and pokies. Each evening at 6 pm The Ode is read, followed by one minute's silence to honour those who died serving their country.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

R

road train: interstate truck with many trailers
roadie: 1 alcohol purchased to take away after drinking somewhere; 2 a final drink prior to leaving; 3 a person who transports and sets up a band's equipment
roll over: 1 by an offender
One who makes a confession in a way that implicates others, in order to gain more favourable treatment.
2 by a witness in a court case
One who was previously hostile who decides to provide evidence helpful to the interrogator.
3 by a politician
One who resigns gracefully.
rollie: a roll-your-own cigarette

As opposed to a tailor-made
roo: kangaroo
roo bar: a strong bumper attached to a vehicle

To absorb the impact when hitting a kangaroo – or anything else!
root: sexual intercourse
rooted: 1 exhausted, tired
I'm rooted after all that hard yakka ...
2 broken
The donk in your tinnie is rooted!
ropeable: very angry
rotten: very drunk
rooned: ruined
From a poem by the bush poet John O'Brien describing the recurrent cycle of droughts, floods and bushfires throughout the country. The key refrain in the poem is We'll all be rooned, the Irish pronunciation of ruined, which has become a dismissive response to predictions of disasters or hard times. written and coined in 1919
rort: a fraudulent or dishonest act or practice
What a great rort!
rough: unfair, unjust
rousie: roustabout
Any outdoor worker with broad-based, non-specific skills.
Commonly found in rural occupations, especially sheep farming and oil-rigs.
rubbidy: a pub; rhyming slang: rub-a-dub-dub for pub
ruckus: commotion
rug up: dress in warm clothes

aussie acronyms

RAAF: royal australian air force
RAN: royal australian navy
RFDS: royal flying doctor service

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 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.

let stalk strine!

Do you have a Gloria Soame?
What are sex?
What is an egg nishner?
And can you tell me where checque etcher londger ray?

Professor Lauder knows the answers‼

australian gazetteer

From Adavale (Qld) to Zeehan (Tas), this atlas will locate any town in Australia.

the most comprehensive atlas you have ever seen

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.

AS 2700 in HTML