‘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“Ad fontes!”
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 MoreAustralian 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
Read MoreAustralia, 1893—refers to extreme thirst or to extreme dryness—popularised by the Australian short-story writer and balladist Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
Read MoreAustralia, 1901—refers to rough penmanship—alludes to Clancy of the Overflow (originally published in The Bulletin, Sydney, on 21st December 1889), by the Australian poet Andrew Barton Paterson
Read MoreAustralia, 1944—jocular—denotes the Yarra River, which flows through Melbourne, Victoria—alludes to the brownish colour of this river, the image being that the mud is on the top, not at the bottom, of this river
Read MoreAustralia, 1981—very dry—alludes to the alleged poor personal hygiene of the British—here, the Australian noun ‘Pommy’ designates a British person
Read More1950—‘grasshopper’ and its shortened form ‘grassy’, typically used in the plural, denote a tourist, especially a visitor to Canberra—the image is that a coachload of tourists is similar to a swarm of grasshoppers
Read Morethe very, the real, or the proper person or thing—1830—of Scottish or Irish origin—perhaps an extended form of the synonymous phrase ‘the potato’
Read MoreAustralia, 1847—an odd-job man—‘wood-and-water’ alludes to the phrase ‘hewer of wood and drawer of water’, designating a labourer of the lowest kind—‘joey’ is perhaps the noun denoting a young kangaroo, and by extension anything young or small
Read MoreAustralia, 1950—a traffic warden in the state of New South Wales—‘brown’ probably refers to the colour of those traffic wardens’ uniform—‘bomber’ may refer to the fact that many of those traffic wardens were originally war veterans; or perhaps to the Australian-English use of the noun ‘bomb’ for an old car
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