The Illustrated Dictionary of
Australian English

Words and Phrases in Afferbeck Lauder

Ya

yabba ∼ yabber: to talk too much
Stop yabbering will ya? From the language of the Woiwurrung in central Victoria.; since the 1840s; Stephen Harold Gascoine (1878-1942) was a rabbito who gained fame as Australia's most celebrated cricket barracker.
Nicknamed Yabba, his verbal assaults were legendary at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
yabby: a freshwater crayfish
Cherax Destructor is native to central and eastern mainland Australia, and have been introduced into WA and Tas.; Yabbies are also known throughout the country as crayfish or simply cray, not to be confused with lobsters or rock lobsters which are marine creatures.
The confusion arises from the fact that rock lobsters are called crayfish in Tas, SA, and NSW. Known colloquially by various regionalisms australia-wide such as lobsters, which is shortened to lobby in Qld, crawbob in NSW & Qld, crawchie in coastal Qld & north-east NSW, craybob in south Qld & NSW, and craydab in NSW & the ACT. The terms blackie , bluey , and greenie refer to different stages of development. In WA – where Cherax Destructor is a recent import – there are other native freshwater crayfish. The gilgie, pronounced with an initial soft g and also spelt jilgie, (colloquialised as joogie), the koonac, and the marron. To the neophyte they are often confused with the yabby and thus their names are used interchangeably. from the language wembawemba of central vic
yabbying: fishing for yabbies
Generally done with a piece of meat attached to a line – you wait until the yabby has its nipper on the meat and then you fling it out onto the land.
yacca: the xanthorrhoea or grass tree
A reference to its yellow resin, Xanthorrhoea literally means ‘yellow flow’ in Ancient Greek.
Common names include grasstree, grass gum-tree (for its resin-yielding species), kangaroo tail and blackboy, based on the purported similarity in appearance of the trunked species to a man holding an upright spear.
In the South West, the Noongar name balga is used. from the language kaurna from s.a.
yack: talk about nothing very important
yahoo: a hoon or a reckless person
yakka: hard work , especially manual labour
That was hard yakka, mate. from the language yagara from s.e. qld Common usage is the collocation hard yakka , or in the phrase all yack and no yakka , describing someone who talks about what they're going to do instead of doing it. since the 1880s
yank my chain: to mislead
Are you fair dinkum, or are you just yankin' my chain?
yarndi: marijuana; All he does all day is sit around and smoke yarndiSee choof for a related term. from the language wiradjuri from nsw
yardie: 1 a yardman, a general hand in a hotel; 2 a general dogsbody in a car yard aussie diminutive
yarn: 1 a talk or chat
We had a yarn about old times. This meaning of yarn as a noun is peculiar to Oz and NZ.
2 a story or tale
Especially a long one about extraordinary events.
Hence, to tell stories or tales.

Ye

yeah - nah: a non-committal expression
Linguistics experts say it is a form of ‘verbal cuddling’ – agreeing to disagree with you, but in a nice way.

According to The Age, it's a sort of
maybe, but probably not.
Hey, you wanna go fishing later?
Yeah-nah, my wife wants me home.aussie saying
yidaki: a wind instrument
The instrument was originally used only in Arnhem Land, but became commonly known in Australia as the didgeridoo.The Yolgnu word for the instrument has become widely known in recent decades, and was popularised by the music group Yothu Yindi, formed in 1986, whose members were Yolgnu speakers. from the language yolgnu from arnhem land, nt
yiel-yiel: a small tree of eastern australian rainforests
Grevillea Hilliana, also known as the White Silky Oak, produces long branched clusters of white to pale green flowers from May to October.
The wood is used in cabinetwork.
yike: a brawl or argument

Yo

yobbo: 1 a hooligan or lout; 2 an unrefined or uncultured person
yoe: a ewe
No longer used except in the lyrics to the song Click Go The Shears.

The ringer looks around and he's beaten by a blow
And he curses the old snagger with the bare-bellied yoe.

What this means is that the fastest shearer – the ringer – was beaten by the slowest shearer – the snagger, whose ewe – yoe or joe – has already lost its belly wool, and so is quicker to shear. colonial slang
yonnie: a small stone suitable for throwing
There are a number of similar words from all over the country for this same item, all of which come from Aboriginal languages. In Vic they have the brinnie , Qld has the gonnie , SA has the ronnie , all along the east coast there is the connie , whilst in WA they have the coondie and the boondie , which also means a large rock, or a sand bomb used by kids. Australia-wide there is the goolie , and the gibber, the only one for which a definite origin is known.first nations n language
you beaut!: excellent, wonderful aussie diminutive
youse: 1 the plural of ‘you’
Borrowed from Irish Gaelic, which has a separate plural for the second‑person pronoun.
Youse guys ought to take a look at this. since the 1890s 2 the singular form of ‘you’
I ain't afraid of youse. since the 1910s
yowie: a mythical beast, an unidentified australian hominid
One of several names for an Australian folklore entity reputed to live in the Outback. From the aboriginal language Yuwaalarraay, up Lightning Ridge NSW way.
One story about the name, a variant of yahoo, suggests that the creature is a part of the Dreamtime.
Old Bungaree, a Gunedah Elder, said at one time:

There were tribes of them, and they were the original inhabitants of the country, they were the old race of blacks ...
The yahoos and the blacks used to fight and the blacks always beat them, but the yahoo always made away from the blacks being a faster runner mostly.

Akin to the sasquatch or yeti, and not to be confused with the bunyip.; first nations language yuwaalarraay
yucko: disgusting, unpleasant, repulsive schoolkids diminutive
yummo: 1 having a very nice taste; 2 beautiful , gorgeous schoolkids diminutive

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.

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.

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.