Australian Slang - Local Lingo
Unique Phrases - Memorable Quotes - W
WACK-O - exclamation expressing anticipation, approval or delight
WACKO THE DIDDLIO - exclamation of pleasure, esp on seeing attractive woman (WW2)
WADDY - a hunting stick or club once used by Aboriginal natives in hunting and fighting
WAFFLE - talk at length
WAFFLE BURGER - fried savoury takaway food made at Coolangatta 1960s
WAGGING - playing truant from school
WAKE-UP - an alert person (1946)
WALER - a horse from NSW; a favourite of Australian mounted troops
WALKABOUT - indigenous journey; rite of passage
WALK TO BOURKE BACKWARDS - Bob Katter re the gay population in North Qld.
WALLABY BRIGADE - Poem published 1894 about the army of itinerant workers who tramped the bush of Australia between the gold rush years of the 1850's and the First World War
WALLABY TRACK (ON THE) - humping bluey on the bush roads of Australia
WALLOPER - policeman
WALLY - forgetful or clumsy person
WALTZING MATILDA - carrying a swag
- WALTZING MATILDA - poem written by Andrew Barton Paterson (Banjo Paterson) - 'I got only a fiver for the song, but it's worth a million to me to hear it sung like this' - Banjo Paterson on hearing Waltzing Matilda sung at an army camp at the beginning of WW1
Beloved throughout Australia for more than 40 years, during the years of the Second World War 'Waltzing Matilda' also became famous in far-away places. One account described the feelings it engendered - "Banjo Paterson died in 1941, when his great Australian ballad was sweeping through bombed Britain. We didn't know when we sang about the defiant swagman in the local pubs of Bethnal Green, Tiger Bay, Jarrow, and Govan, that the minstrel boy of the bush country had just passed on and left us this legacy, a drinking song that went as well with Old and Mild as it does with Australian ale. All we knew was that we couldn't sing "Waltzing Matilda" without thinking of brown faces under wide-brimmed Digger hats, of Tobruk "Rats" and guest aircrews of the R.A.A.F., of narrow blue-jean collars and those spitting alleycats of the Mediterranean — the "Scrap Iron" destroyer flotilla of the R.A.N. For many of us, this wryly gay sadly rollicking Australian song was the first stimulus to a new curiosity about the far-flung land."
WANDERING JEW - Stew (soldier slang WW1)
WANKER - contemptible person
WARATAH - a brilliantly coloured red flower; state emblem of NSW
WARRIGAL - Aboriginal term for untamed; esp. dogs and horses
WATCH IT SPORT - threat
WATERBAG - bag made of skin, leather or canvas for keeping water cool
WATERING HOLE - pub
WATTLE AND DAUB - early Australian hut made from a woven lattice of wattle branches which has been is daubed with wet clay, sand or straw
WATTLE DAY - Now held annually on 1st September. First proposed in 1909 by Mr. J. H. Maiden, Mrs. Clunies-Ross and Mrs. Kettlewell with a view to stimulating Australian national sentiment and connecting it with love of the beautiful native flora
WATTLE TREE - botanic acacia. The name wattle was first applied by early settlers from England who had been accustomed to wattling (placing thin, flexible twigs or limbs of trees on to a roof to hold the thatch). When they made their homes in Austrlia they found a suitable timber for wattling was the acacia which they called wattling trees and later wattles
WE ARE ON THE CREST OF A SLUMP - Gold Coast rugby league coach Phil Economidis after a rough trot.
WEEKENDER - a weekend cottage or shack
WE KNEW YOU WOULD FIGHT WELL; WE EXPECTED YOU TO FIGHT WELL; BUT WE DID NOT EXPECT YOU TO ASTONISH THE WORLD - address by French Premier M. Georges Clemenceau thanking Australian troops at the end of WW1
WELCOME TO COUNTRY - Traditionally, a Welcome to Country was an invitation or permission for an indigenous person from different tribal land to enter or pass through. These days it is usually a commercial arrangement; a ceremony performed by a local indigenous person to acknowledge and give consent to events taking place on their traditional lands
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY - acknowledgment of traditional custodianship of the land at the commencement of functions, meetings and presentations of government departments, various sporting events, schools, universities and many other organisations. The ceremony has come to be resented by many non-indigenous Australians who believe it to be an example of tokenism. Indigenous activist Noel Pearson has warned the Acknowledgement of Country is being overused, diminishing the significance of the practice
NO WELCOME TO COUNTRY - In April 2023 academic and activist, Marcia Langton promised/threatened Australian Voice 'NO' voters by predicting the consequences of a failed 'Yes' vote using the following words - "How are they going to ever ask an Indigenous person, a traditional owner, for a welcome to country? How are they ever going to be able to ask me to come and speak at their conference?."If they have the temerity to do it, of course the answer is going to be no."
WE LEFT OUR COUNTRY FOR OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD -Extract from the Prologue at the Opening of the first Playhouse in Sydney 16 January 1796 by ex-convict George Barrington
WELL MAY WE SAY GOD SAVE THE QUEEN , BECAUSE NOTHING WILL SAVE THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL - Gough Whitlam in 1975 at the dismissal
WELLIES - wellington boots
WE'LL ALL BE ROONED SAID HANRAHAN - a dismissive response to predictions of disasters or hard times from poem 'Said Hanrahan' by bush poet John O Brien
WERE YOU BORN IN A TENT? - Shut the door!
WE'RE WINNIN' - when tucker is plentiful (Soldier slang WW1)
WERRIS CREEK - leak (urinate) (rhyming slang)
WET AS WATER - ineffective
WHACKLING OUT - thinking deeply about something (1918)
WHACKS - Dutch treat (1942)
WHALER - similar to a sundowner - itinerant worker/ swagman who often appeared at stations at sunset in search of work c. 1885
WHAT DID THAT SET YOU BACK? - How much did that cost?
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A CRUST? - what do you do for a living?
WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS? BUSH WEEK? exclamation when someone does something wrong
WHAT'S THE DAMAGE? - how much is owed?
WHAT THESE MEN DID NOTHING CAN ALTER NOW. THE GOOD AND THE BAD, THE GREATNESS AND SMALLNESS OF THEIR STORY WILL STAND, IT RISES, AS IT ALWAYS WILL RISE, ABOVE THE MISTS OF TIME, A MONUMENT TO GREAT-HEARTED MEN; AND, FOR THEIR NATION, A POSSESSION FOR EVER - Charles Bean, Official War Historian
WHAT'S YOUR POISON? What would you like to drink
WHEN I STAND UP IN PARLIAMENT, THE LABOUR BENCHES WHISTLE - Scott Morrison's thoughts on what the ALP thinks of him
WHEN PEOPLE MEET MY WIFE THEY THINK BETTER OF ME. THEY SAY: "WITH A WIFE LIKE THAT, HE CAN'T BE AS BAD AS WE THOUGHT" - Sir Robert Menzies referring to his wife Dame Pattie
WHEN YOU LEFT THE LODGE, DID YOU GET YOUR BOND BACK? - Norman Gunston to John Gorton
WHERE DEAD MEN LIE - a poem by Australian poet Barcroft Boake. It was first published in The Bulletin magazine on 19 December 1891
WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU? -advertising campaign launched by Tourism Australia in 2006
WHERE THE BULL FEEDS - grass (c. 1920s)
WHINGEING POM - An immigrant from England who moans about trifling inconveniences in Australia and constantly compares them to the equivalent back home
WHIPPERSNAPPER - a child
WHIPPY - short for whipping post; 'home' in children's game hide-and-seek
WHIPPY STICKING - (no whippy sticking unless you're 'in'); call by children when playing hide-and-seek warning against staying close to the 'home'
WHIP THE CAT - cry over spilt milk
WHIPS OF TIME - an abundance of time
WHIPS OF TIN -any amount of money
WHISKEY AU GO GO - The Whisky Au Go-Go nightclub in Fortitude Valley, Queensland, caught fire after two drums of fuel were set alight on 8 March 1973 Fifteen patrons died from asphyxiation
WHISTLE AND FLUTE - suit (of clothes)
WHITE ANT - cut in on another's property by subterfuge
WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY - a set of historical policies in 1901 that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin from immigrating to Australia
WHITE LOT - silver chain (criminal slang 1925)
WHITE MARY - generic name used by aborigines for all female cooks on out stations
WHITE SHOE BRIGADE - (Qld 1980s) wealthy business people and property developers; politically conservative
WHIZZ BANG - German shell (WW1)
WHIZZER - pickpocket (criminal slang 1925)
WHOLE SHEBANG - ALL
WHO LET FLUFFY OFF THE CHAIN - who farted?
WHOOPDY DO - big deal; sarcastic
WHOPPER - a lie
WHY IS IT SO? - Professor Sumner Miller catch phrase
WIDOW MAKER - tree, deadwood falling branch from eucalyptus gum tree
WIDE BROWN LAND - from Dorothea Mackellar's poem ‘My Country’
WIDGIES AND BODGIES - youth subculture in the 1950s
WIFE BEATER - blue singlet worn by men (American origin?)
WIGWAM FOR A GOOSE'S BRIDLE (going to get) - dismissive reply to an unwanted query
WILD COLONIAL BOY (THE) - ballad about bushranger 'Bold Jack Donohoe'
WILLIES - a feeling of disquiet
WILLING SHILLING WEEK - fund-raising drive held in May in 1950s and 60s when Girl Guides, Brownies and Rangers spent their spare time doing odd jobs to raise money for the association. Equivalent of the Scout's Bob a Job week
WILLY-WILLY - small whirlwind; also called cock-eyed bob or dust-devil
WINDBAG - a talker out of his turn (soldier slang WW1)
WINDMILL J.P. - expression formerly used in NSW for any J.P. who was ill-educated and supposed to sign his name with a cross x. (Morris 1898)
WINGED KEEL - Wing at the base of sailing boat keel. Invented by Ben Lexcen. First used in 1983 America’s Cup on Australia II.
WINTER WILL GROW DARK AND COLD / BEFORE THE WATTLE TURNS TO GOLD - Penned by Australian Catholic poet James McAuley in 1976 at the news of his impending death
WISE UP - understand what's going on
WITCHETTY GRUB - large, white, wood-eating larvae of moths. Bush tucker
WITHIN COOEE - Within ear shot
WITHOUT A CRACKER - to be without money
WOBBLER - soldier toadying for stripes (WW2)
WOG - a flu or virus
WOG - derogatory term for new migrants 1960s and 1970s
WOLF - prison guard who is hard on his men (c. 1893)
WOMBAT - slow moving marsupial of nocutrnal habits; anyone with the same characteristics
WOMBAT TRAIL - election campaign trail by leaders of the National Party. Coined for the Nationals by press gallery during the 1977 federal election campaign
WOMEN OF THE WEST - poem by George Essex Evans - 'The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West' first published 1901
WON'T HAVE A BAR OF - refuses to take part
WOOD AND WATER JOEY - a person who hangs about pubs; a doer of odd jobs (1887)
WOODBINE - English soldier ( WW1)
WOOL IS UP - times are good; wool being the staple of Australia c. 1895)
WOOL IS DOWN - times are bad
WOOLOOMOOLOO YANK - flashy dresser (WW2)
WOOL SHED - shearing shed
WOOMERA ROCKET RANGE - Unique military testing range covering 122 188 square kilometres in north-west South Australia. Largest land testing range in the world
WOOP WOOP - the back of nowhere; fictitious
WORKED A STANDOVER - to steal
WORLD SERIES CRICKET - one day cricket games for TV introduced by Kerry Packer
WOULDN'T BE DEAD FOR QUIDS - happy to be alive
WOULDN'T GIVE THE TIME OF DAY - dismissive
WOULDN'T HAVE A BAR OF IT - would have nothing to do with it
WOULDN'T KNOW HIM FROM A BAR OF SOAP - wouldn't recognise someone
WOULDN'T TOUCH IT WITH A TEN FOOT POLE - having nothing to do with it
WOULDN'T WORK IN AN IRON LUNG - doesnt work
WOULD TO GODDER - for the man who would to god he could go to the front, but preferred to stay at home (WW1)
WOWSER - boring conservative narrow minded person; killjoy. In 1916 Australian poet C. J. Dennis defined a wowser as 'an ineffably pious person who mistakes the world for a penitentiary and himself for a warder'
WRAP YOUR LAUGHING GEAR ROUND THAT - to eat something
WRECK OF THE NEVA - Convict ship with 150 female prisoners and children wrecked on King's Island in 1835
WRECK OF THE CATARAQUI - British barque. Immigrant ship. Sank off the south-west coast of King Island in Bass Strait on 4 August 1845. 400 people drowned
WRECK OF THE DUNBAR - wrecked near the entrance to Sydney Harbour in 1857 with the loss of 121 lives
WUSS - weak ineffectual
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