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Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

W

WACA: the perth cricket ground
An acronym for the Western Australian Cricket Association
waffle: talking without getting to the point
wag: 1 an amusing person
You're such a wag!
2 playing truant
We've been waggin' school.
walkabout: 1 a rite of passage
For adolescent male aussie aborigines, typically aged 10–16, who make the spiritual transition to manhood by living in the wilderness for several months.
2 a nomadic predisposition of aussie aborigines
To create a connection with traditional, spiritual roots, and to fulfil cultural and familial obligations.
aussie aboriginal pidgin english 3 something that is lost
My pen's gone walkabout again!
aussie slang since the 1920s
walkover: an easy victory
wallop: 1 large quantity
Give us a wallop of that ice-cream.
2 a punch
If you kids don't behave you'll cop a walloping.
See packs a wallop for another usage.
wallaby: 1 a small or mid-sized macropod
The young are known as joeys, like many other marsupials. Adult males are referred to as bucks, boomers, or jacks. Adult females are known as a doe, flyer, or jill. A group is called a court, mob, or troupe. Forest-dwellers are known as pademelons Although most species are small, some can grow up to two metres from head to end of tail. Their powerful hind legs are not only used for bounding at high speeds and jumping great heights, but also to administer vigorous kicks to fend off potential predators. from dharug walabi
2 a national rugby union team member
The team first played at Sydney in 1899, winning their first test match against the touring British Isles team.
wally: a foolish person
waltzin' matilda: national song of australia
Composed by 'Banjo' Paterson in 1853.; Performed by Wallis & Matilda; For the national anthem see Advance Australia.
wanker: a stupid male person
war paint: cosmetics

W

weatherboard

a wooden house

weero

a cockatiel
From the Aboriginal language Nyungar, spoken in south-western WA
wa slang

wedding tackle

male genitalia

Werribee trout

excrement floating in the water you are swimming in
Also called a brown trout. Known as a Bondi cigar in Sydney.
vic slang

westie

a flannie-clad, mullet-sporting yobbo
Australia-wide known as a bogan

Qld: bevan

NSW: westie

Vic: scozzer

Tas: chigger

nsw slang

wet ∼ the big wet

the monsoon season

wettie

a wetsuit

W

whacko!: an expression of enthusiasm
wharfie: a dock worker
whinge: to complain
whip around: to collect money for a gift
white pointers: topless female sunbathers
whiteant: to criticise something
In order to deter somebody from buying it.
who's robbing this coach?: a rhetorical question meaning: who is in charge here?
The story goes that Ned Kelly was bailing up a coach one day and proclaimed:
I'm going to rob all the men and take all the women.
To which one of the male passengers said:
You can't do that, you dreadful man,
only to be shouted down by a female passenger saying:
Who's robbing this coach, you or Mister Kelly?
wicked: very good
We had a wicked time at Harry's wing-ding.
willing: inclined to overcharge or make excessive demands
That salesman is a bit willing …
willy-nilly: disorderly things
Usually discarded all over the place.
wing-ding: a big party
Harry knows how to put on a great wing-ding.

W

wobbly: to lose one's temper, to show excitable behaviour
She chucked a wobbly and went home.
wobbly boot: worn when in a state of inebriation
I've got me wobbly boots on…
wog: 1 a person of mediterranean origin
There were a few wogs at the pub.
derogatory slang 2 a trivial illness
I've got a bit of a wog so I'm chuckin a sickie .
aussie slang
wombat: They are sturdy, stout marsupials that grow to about 1.3 metres long and weigh up to 35kg. They are very elusive and rarely leave their burrows before dusk.; Sometimes their burrows are large enough for people to crawl through.
In 1878 a trooper hid in one from the Kelly gang.; Wombat Species
1 the southern hairy‑nosed wombat
Occurs in southern SA, south-eastern WA, and western Vic — the smallest of the three species.
2 the northern hairy‑nosed wombat
Lives in grasslands, and acacia and eucalyptus woodlands — the largest of the three species. It is now one of the rarest animals in the world, with only about 80 northern hairy‑nosed wombats living in central Qld.
3 the common wombat
Occurs in south-eastern Australia. It has coarse hair and a small tail.
See badger for more usage.
wonky: shaky, unstable, not straight
woomera: a type of throwing stick
Traditionally used for hunting, with a notch at one end for holding a dart or spear, thus giving increased leverage in throwing. from dharug language
Woop Woop: an invented name for any small unimportant town
Located a long way from anywhere.
wowser: straight-laced person, prude, puritan, spoilsport
wuckin' furries: no worries
I'll do the job, no wuckin' furries about that.
Shortened to no wuckers
wuss: a coward or a nervous person

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.