Category: Australia & New Zealand

‘spud-cocky’: meaning and origin

.Reading time 7 minutes.

Australia, 1911—a potato farmer—composed of ‘spud’ (a potato) and ‘cocky’ (a farmer working a small-scale farm)—‘cocky’: shortened form of ‘cockatoo’ (a farmer working a small-scale farm)

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‘old boiler’: meaning and origin

.Reading time 21 minutes.

Australia, 1950—UK, 1962—derogatory and offensive: a middle-aged or elderly woman, especially one who is unattractive or unfeminine—refers to ‘boiler’, i.e., a tough old chicken for cooking by boiling

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‘Ma State’: meaning and origin

.Reading time 13 minutes.

the State of New South Wales—Australia, 1905—alludes to New South Wales as the ‘mother’ colony, i.e., the first colony that Britain founded in Australia—hence (1908) ‘Ma Stater’, a native or inhabitant of New South Wales

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‘grey death’: meaning and origin

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Australian slang, 1960s—the unpalatable and unnutritious evening stew that used to be served to prison inmates—by extension: any unpalatable item of food

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‘sausage-wrapper’ (i.e., a newspaper)

.Reading time 12 minutes.

colloquially used as a contemptuous appellation for a newspaper that the speaker regards as downmarket—Australia, 1880—but had occurred once (USA, 1874) as ‘bologna sausage wrapper’

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‘tarpaulin muster’: meaning and origin

.Reading time 10 minutes.

the collecting of a pool of money, to be used either to provide assistance to some (other) person(s) or cause, or to buy drinks for the contributors—USA, 1863—nautical origin: such funds were originally collected by having the ship’s crew drop their money onto a tarpaulin

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