‘dinnyhayser’: meanings (and origin?)
Australia, 1878—a knockout blow; anything of exceptional size or force—allegedly alludes to a boxer called Dinny Hayes—but no evidence supports this allegation
Read MoreTag: Australia
‘not worth a crumpet’: meaning and early occurrences
Australia, 1944—utterly worthless—one of the phrases built on the pattern ‘not worth a —’, such as ‘not worth a tinker’s curse’
Read More‘Christmas hold’: meaning and origin
also ‘Christmas grip’—Australia, prison slang, 1953—a grabbing of another’s testicles—the image is of a handful of nuts
Read More‘within a bull’s roar of’: a measure of distance
Australia, 1930—when used negatively, means ‘far away from’; when used affirmatively, means ‘not too far away from’—refers to the fact that a roaring bull can be heard over a great distance
Read More‘boudoir bandicoot’: meaning and origin
Australia—a promiscuous male—coined in 1983, during a parliamentary debate, by Michael Hodgman, then Member of the Australian House of Representatives, to describe Bob Hawke, then Prime Minister of Australia
Read More‘like a twisted sandshoe’: meanings and early occurrences
Australia, 1954—extremely ugly; extremely tired—the noun ‘sandshoe’ denotes a light canvas shoe with a rubber sole
Read More‘to make one’s marble(s) good’: meaning and origin
New Zealand, 1885; Australia, 1897—to make a good impression on a person, to ingratiate oneself, to improve one’s position—refers to the children’s game of marbles
Read More‘winedot’: meaning and origin
Australia, 1933—an addict of cheap wine or/and of methylated spirits—apparently coined jocularly after ‘Wyandotte’, denoting a domestic chicken of a medium-sized American breed
Read More‘stickybeak’: meanings and origin
Australia—1914: the nose of an overly inquisitive person—later: an overly inquisitive person, who pries into the affairs of others—hence used as a verb meaning ‘to pry’, ‘to snoop’
Read More‘the big smoke’: meanings and origins
Australian English, 1848: any urban area (said to be of Aboriginal origin)—Irish and British English, 1862: Dublin and London—alludes to smoke as characteristic of an urban area
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