If you are a Brit (or from anywhere outside of Australia for that matter) you may find some of the phrases being shouted at you somewhat confusing.  Never fear however, here is a collection of translations which may help you out.

A

• ace - excellent, very good
• aggro – (adj) aggressive; (n) aggravation
• apples, she's - everything is all right; often modified with will as in she'll be apples
• arsey - someone showing daring, audacity, and/or cheekiness or experiencing extremely good luck, particularly if this involves a near-miss to injury. In use since the 1950s. Derived from "tin arsed".
• not being arsed - lack of interest, as in "I couldn't be arsed to do it". Also British English.
• arvo – short for afternoon; in use since the 1950s
• Aussie salute - brushing away flies with the hand

B

• B & S - Bachelors' and Spinsters' Ball - a party usually held in
• bag - (v) to denigrate; (n) an ugly woman; both senses in use since the 1960s
• bags - to reserve, as in "(I) Bags the last frosty fruit (ice block)" or "can someone do the dishes?" "Bags not!". Also used in UK English.
• bail (somebody) up - to corner somebody physically
• bail out - depart, usually angrily
• beaut – (adj) great, fantastic, terrific; in use since the 1910s (n) great thing; for example, "What a beaut!"; in use since the 1890s
• beauty – exclamation showing approval, often spelt as bewdy (to represent Australian pronunciation). For example: "You bewdy!", which is roughly equivalent to "Great!", "Fantastic!" or "Wonderful!". In use since the 1850s.
• bickie – biscuit. Sometimes also used as a word for a cigarette lighter, after the manufacturer Bic. More recently this has become a slang word for the drug ecstasy, from the slang disco biscuit.
• big-note oneself - brag, boast
• bizzo - business ("Mind your own bizzo.")
• biff or biffo - brawl or fist fight
• bloody - very (bloody hard yakka)
• bloody oath - that's certainly true
• blue
  • a fight, brawl or heated argument; similar to the British word "barney"
  • an embarrassing mistake (for example, "I've made a blue.")
  • pornographic ("a blue movie")
  • offensive ("blue language")
  • someone with red hair (also "Bluey")
• bluey - pack, equipment, traffic ticket, redhead, blue heeler (cattle dog).
• bludge – to shirk, be idle, or waste time either doing nothing or something inappropriate; to live off others efforts rather than providing for one's self, to receive welfare payments; to deliberately skip school classes (used mainly by adolescents): compare bum
• bloody – very; "the great Australian adjective / adverb"; also common in British English
• bloody oath – Used as an affirmative to a statement, often when something has been understated. Believed to date back to colonial times, from the expression "My colonial oath!" and then later "My Australian oath!"
• bodgy - of inferior quality
• bodged – botched; of inferior or poor quality; contraction of bodgie; see Appendix:Old, declining or expired Australian vocabulary
• bog in - commence eating, to attack food with enthusiasm
• bog standard - basic, unadorned, without accessories (a bog standard car, telephone etc.)
• bonzer - great, ripper
• boogie board - a hybrid, half-sized surf board
• bored shitless - very bored
• bottler - something excellent
• bottling, his blood's worth - he's an excellent, helpful bloke
• Bourke Street, he doesn't know Christmas from - he's a bit slow in the head. (Bourke Street is a brightly lit Melbourne street)
• bowl of rice, not my - not my cup of tea; I don't like it
• brick shithouse - (The appearance of) being strongly built ("... built like a brick shithouse"); from the chunky look of well-made backyard dunnies of pre-70's and rural housing
• buck's night - stag party, male gathering the night before the wedding
• buckley's – (originally "buckley's chance" and "buckley's and none"); something which has little or no chance of success; origin uncertain, possibly a reference to an escaped convict, William Buckley, who was believed dead in 1803, but lived in an Aboriginal community for more than 30 years. As in, "You've got two chances: Buckley's and none". In Melbourne, a reference to the (now defunct) department store "Buckley's and Nunn", so still meaning the same thing.
• bum crumb - an insult
• bummed - feeling depressed or unhappy about the result of something; being on the receiving end of homosexual intercourse
• bundy - run away from a situation to escape getting introuble or caught. Also a type of alcohol, Bundaberg Rum
• bung
  • originally a stopper in a cask; a synonym for "put" or "place"; as in "bung it in the oven" (also used in British English); also pretending as in "bunging it on"
  • not working, broken, impaired, injured or infected. From the Jagara (Aboriginal language) word for "dead".
• bush
  • woodland, generally called bushland
  • rural Australia (not necessarily the Outback) and those who live in it
• bush bashing - to drive through the bush in a 4WD (SUV); a long competitive running or motorcar race through the bush; a difficult walk
• bushfire - wild forest fire
• bushwalking – hiking in the bush
• bush oyster - nasal mucus
• bush telly - campfire
• bushman's hanky - emitting nasal mucus by placing one index finger on the outside of the nose (thus blocking one nostril) and blowing

C

• cactus - dead, non-functional, not functioning
• cark it - to die, cease functioning
• carn – Assimilation of "come on!" or "Go on!"; usually used to either goad someone, "Carn, have another.", or to cheer on a sporting team "Carn the Doggies."
• chook's cooked, Your - Times up, it's all over, it has ended for you
• Chrissie - Christmas
• Christmas - see Bourke Street
• chuck a sickie - take the day off sick from work when you're perfectly healthy
• Clayton's – fake, substitute, not the real thing, ersatz; (from a brand of zero alcohol mixer, advertised as "the drink you have when you're not having a drink") less widely used than in New Zealand; declining as the commercial has not played in many years
• click - kilometre - "It's 10 clicks away."
• clucky - feeling broody or maternal
• come a gutser - make a bad mistake, have an accident
• compo - workers' compensation pay
• corker - something excellent. A good stroke in cricket might be described as a 'corker of a shot'
• corroboree - an aboriginal dance festival
• cranky - in a bad mood, angry
• cream - (verb) defeat by a large margin
• crook - angry; sick; unwell; unfair; badly made
• cubby house - small, usually timber, house in the garden used as a children's plaything
• cut – angry or upset;

D

• dag – literal meaning is a poo hanging from a sheep's bum. Is used in a more friendly manner to describe how someone dresses, or a friendly reproach. "Did you see her Dad shirt? He's such a dag."
• dead set – (adj) certain; indisputable; true; the truth
• deadly – excellent (Aboriginal English)
• devo – (IPA: /ˈde.vəʉ/), devastated
• devo - (IPA: /ˈdiː.vəʉ/), deviant
• der – that's obvious, duh; an exasperated acknowledgement common in Victoria and New South Wales, especially among children. Also
• dekko - a look, to inspect something
• dink – to give somebody a lift on the back of a bicycle. The term double-dink is used in Northern and Western NSW.
• dinkum – honest, genuine, real (OED). Probably not, as is often claimed, from the Cantonese (or Hokkien) ding kam, meaning "top gold". Most scholars believe dinkum was a dialect word from the East Midlands of England, where it meant "hard work" or "fair work", which was also the original meaning in Australian English.[1] The derivation dinky-di means a native-born Australian or "the real thing". Fair dinkum means "fair and square", i.e. honest; true; real; genuine; can be shortened to dinks
• dinky-di - the real thing, genuine
• dirty - (adj) bad, when applied to weather "It's going to get dirty later this afternoon"
• division – electoral district, equivalent to constituency in UK, electorate in New Zealand, riding in Canada (This term is formally used in the parliament but in general use the term 'electorate' is most common).
• dob – to inform on. To "dob (somebody) in" is to inform on somebody. If this occurs one has been "dobbed in" and a person who does this is a "dobber" sometimes called a "dibber-dobber" (a tell-tale), though the latter term is usually restricted to use by children. Adult dobbers for real crimes (as opposed to telling Mum or a teacher) are commonly called dogs or mongrels.
• docket - a bill, receipt
• doco - documentary
• doona – cf. British duvet. From the brand name Doona; cf. dyne with same pronunciation in Scandinavian languages. Originally the generic term was continental quilt. In South Australia and, to a lesser extent, Queensland the word quilt is used, and the term eiderdown (from the name of the eider duck) is also used.
• dreamtime – in the mythology of most Indigenous Australians, a "golden age" when the first ancestors and living things were created; a calque of the Arrernte word alcheringa
• drum - information, tip-off ("I'll give you the drum.")
• duchess - sideboard
• duck's nuts, duck's guts or bee's knees - something that is perfectly suited (Sometimes referred to as the
• duffer, cattle - rustler
• dummy – a device, usually plastic, for babies to suck. cf. American pacifier (also common in British English); or cf. American mannequin. Also an idiot.
• dummy, spit the - get very upset at something
• dux - top of the class (n.); to be top of the class (v.)

E

• earbashing - nagging, non-stop chatter
• emu bob – the duty given to enlisted men in the military, of picking up cigarette butts lying around barracks and parade grounds. The term arose by the similarity between a person bending over to pick up litter and the distinctive bob that emus make when picking at the ground. The term is primarily used in military circles but in recent years its usage has broadened. It was also used up until at least the last 5 years by Scouts and Cub Scouts for the same activity. The term emu parade, meaning the collection of all types of litter, enjoys wider usage. The term emubob is still used among Australian Army Cadets to describe the duty of moving through an area in extended file to pick up rubbish.

F

• fair dinkum – true, genuine; see dinkum
• fair enough – I don't see a problem with that; OK
• fair go or fair crack of the whip - (request for) a chance or a reasonable opportunity to complete a task;
• fair suck of the sav - exclamation of wonder, awe, disbelief
• feral - someone or something that's mad and displays out of control behaviour not normally associated with them; (of food) no longer suitable for consumption. A Feral (with capitals) is a derogratory term for variety of modern day hippies, commonly stereotyped as unclean in habits and living rough in the Bush.
• flat out - busy, moving as fast as possible
• flat out like a lizard drinking - busy to the point of being overworked
  
• flick - to give something or somebody the flick is to get rid of it or him/her
• flick it on - to sell something, usually for a quick profit, soon after buying it.
• flog:
  • to sell something
  • to steal something
  • to treat something roughly
  • to beat someone up
  • to masturbate
• fly wire - gauze flyscreen covering a window or doorway
• footpath – any well-used walkway, but in particular a paved walkway running parallel to a street or road, and known in other countries as a sidewalk or pavement.
• fossick - to prospect, for example for gold; hence to search, to rummage, for example "fossicking through the kitchen drawers"
• Fremantle doctor - the cooling afternoon breeze that arrives in Perth from the direction of Freeo
• fuck-all, Sweet F-A or Sweet Fanny Adams - none; nothing; extremely little; often put in the phrase "You've got two chances: fuck-all and none."; can be modified to "three fifths of fuck all" to add emphasis
• fugly - fucking ugly; usually a term of astonished admiration, often applied to unattractive dogs but it can be used of people in a derogatory sense
• furphy - false or unreliable rumour

G

• gammon or gammon job (mainly used in the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland) – A word derived from a similar sounding Aboriginal word meaning "invented" or "not true". As in "that's gammon mate" or "no mate, that's a gammon job there".
• garn – go on; going; for example "Garn y'mongrel."; see carn
• ganda or gander - to take a look at something. As in "Let's go take a gander next door.'
• g'day – good day, hello; the typical Aussie greeting generally used by Broad Australian English speakers, the working class and blue collar workers
• give it a burl - try it, have a go
• gobful, give a - to abuse, usually justifiably ("The neighbours were having a noisy party so I went and gave them a gobful.")
• gobsmacked - surprised, astounded
• going off - used of a night spot or party that is a lot of fun - "The place was really going off."
• good oil - useful information, a good idea, the truth
• good onya - good for you, well done
• goon
  • cheap cask wine, also can mean the bag containing the wine also know as a goon bag, or a goon sack.
  • another name for a man, woman, or animal with an ape appearance
• grouse – (adj.) great, terrific, very good; common in Victoria
• gun – (adj) of excellent ability; above-average; derived from shearing – the fastest shearer in the shed was the gun-shearer;

H

• Hills Hoist – a type of rotary clothes-line; Hills was the designer and original manufacturer of the rotary clothes-line.
• heaps - a lot; very. To "give someone heaps" is to pour mockery and/or abuse on them.
• hooly dooley - a term used when something out of the ordinary happens, an exclamation of surprise; similar "good heavens", "my goodness", "good grief", etc.
• hooroo - goodbye[2]
• hottie - hot water bottle
• how ya going - how have you been/how are you doing
• humpy - small Aboriginal shelter, or any temporary outdoor shelter

I

• idiot box – a television set

J

• jet – to go somewhere in a hurry
• jaded- feeling hungover or suffering the after effects of drugs

K

• kangaroos loose in the top paddock - intellectually inadequate
• kenoath - contraction of "fucking oath"
• kero - kerosene
• kick on – partying on after a discotheque or night club has finished, usually involving more drinking and/or drug taking
• kindie - kindergarten
• knackered – tired, exhausted
• knock - to criticise
• knock back - (noun) refusal, (transitive verb) refuse

L

• lend of, to have a - to take advantage of somebody's gullibility, to have someone on ("He's having a lend of you.")
• light globe – an incandescent light bulb; globe is no longer commonly used in this sense outside Australia; bulb is sometimes also heard in Australia.
• lingo – language or dialect
• lippy - lipstick
• lob or lob in - drop in to see someone
• London to a brick - absolute certainty for example "It's London to a brick that taxes won't go down."
• long paddock - the side of the road where livestock is grazed during droughts
• lunch box, open one's - to fart
• lurk - illegal or underhanded racket

M

• manchester – household linen
• mangkin - a common, often Western Australian expression used to describe the behaviour of someone on drugs, usually magic mushrooms, which are native to Western Australia
• mate's rate or mate's discount - cheaper than usual for a friend
• matilda - swagman's bedding, sleeping roll
• metho - methylated spirits
• Mickey Mouse - excellent, very good; inconsequential, frivolous, not very good; whether it has the positive or negative meaning depends on context and where you are in Australia
• milk bar - a shop where milk-shakes and other refreshments can be bought. In Victoria and New South Wales is a local shop where basic groceries such as bread, milk, and other everyday household goods can also be bought. Known as a deli in South Australia and Western Australia and as a corner shop in Queensland (also a "convenience store") and Tasmania. (In States other than SA and WA, "deli" retains the usual international usage of delicatessen.)
• moll – Used to describe a person or persons who have perpetrated an act, spoken words, or generally just 'done something' to annoy the user of this word. 'Mole' can be attributed to both males and females - "God she annoys me. She's such a moll." Usually mistakenly written as 'mole'
• mozz or to put the mozz on - jinx
• mungin' - (IPA: /maŋ.ɪn/) to eat veraciously; to perform oral sex, for example, "I was mungin' on her."
• munted – either broken, mangled or state of inebriation, generally from drugs
• muntyhead – one who likes to get munted
• muster - round up sheep or cattle

N

• natio - nationality
• nasho - National Service (compulsory military service)
• nature strip (or verge in Western Australia) – a lawn or plantation in the road reserve between the property boundary and the street
• no drama - same as no worries
• no worries or nurries – you're welcome; no problem; that's all right; expression of forgiveness or reassurance; etc.
• noon – as opposed to the British English midday; also used in American English
• norcs - tits
• not the full quid - not bright intellectually
• no wuckin' furries – a spoonerism of no fuckin' worries, has the same usage as no worries. Used where the original version might be regarded as offensive. Sometimes shortened to no wuckers.
• nut out - hammer out; work out

O

• okey-dokey – OK
• on ya bike – as in get on your bike and piss off. A way to tell someone to leave - "Off you go, on ya bike.
• op shop - opportunity shop, thrift store, place where second hand goods are sold

P

• paddock - see 'long paddock'
• pearler – an excellent example of something (e.g. mate, that new car of yours is a pearler.).
• perv - short for pervert ("That old fella's a bit of a perv") it can also mean having a look, often but not always, at a member of the desired sex.
• pez – something of poor value or perceived to be less worthy than others; someone who acts in a negative way; derived from peasant
• piece of piss - easy task
• pig's arse – I don't agree with you
• pinged – caught doing something wrong, esp. by an umpire in the game of Australian rules football when penalised for holding the ball.
• pink slip, get the - get the sack (from the colour of the termination form)
• pissed off or pissed – angry. Pissed can also mean drunk.
• pissing into the wind - futile efforts. A task or undertaking with little or no chance of success; something not worth doing.
• piss in the woods - simple, easy
• piss-fart around – to waste time
• piss off – to get lost; to leave
• piss-weak or piss-poor – weak; ineffectual; pathetic; unfair: a general purpose negative
• pissing down – raining heavy
• pokies - poker machines, fruit machines, gambling slot machines; also known as "mincers" for the way they chew your money up
• poofteenth - a minuscule amount, a smidgen
• port – any form of hand luggage, especially a school bag, only used in Queensland and to some extent in New South Wales; from portmanteau
• pov or povo – cheap looking; from poverty
• pozzy - position
• prezzy - present, gift

Q

• quid, make a - earn a living
• quid, not the full - of low IQ; quid is slang for a pound, £1 became $2 when Australia converted to decimal currency

R

• rack off - push off! get lost! get out of here! also "rack off hairy legs!".
• rage - party
• rage on - to continue partying - "we raged on until 3am"
• rapt - pleased, delighted
• ratshit – broken, not working properly; extremely drunk
• raw prawn, to come the - to bullshit, to be generally disagreeable
• reckon - you bet, absolutely
• rego - vehicle registration
• ridgy-didge - original, genuine
• righto - okay or that's right. Can also be said as rigthio.
• right, that'd be - Accepting bad news as inevitable. ("I went fishing but caught nothing." "Yeah, that'd be right.")
• rip snorter - great, fantastic, excellent
• ripper - (n) something that is excellent, great, fantastic; similar to beauty; for example, "You little ripper." (an exclamation of delight or as a reaction to good news); possibly from rippa - Japanese (りっぱ), meaning splendid, fine or elegant possibly through contact with Japanese pearl divers living in Australia during the late 19th Century
• the ripper's - the stripper's
• rock up - to turn up, to arrive
• ropeable - very angry
• rort - (verb or noun) cheating, fiddling, defrauding (expenses, the system etc.); a scam, especially the exploitation of rules or laws; used mostly to describe the actions of politicians. (Also lurk as a noun.)
• rough as guts - (adj) rough, bumpy, of poor quality
• rubbish - (verb) to criticise

S

• satched - to be extremely wet, usually from being caught in the rain; from saturated
• scab
  • to take something with no direct recompense, somewhat like bum or cadge (UK),
  • to dob someone in
  • a union worker who goes to work when the company is on strike
  • a non-union worker that breaks picket lines to work when the normal workers are on strike
  • one who is tight with money or possessions
• scrag
  • an unattractive woman. A rough or unkempt woman, e.g. "She's a scrag moll"
  • holding someone back by the neck or garment. To wring someone's neck.
• scrag fight - a fight between two women, usually physical.
• scratchy - instant lottery ticket
• sealed road – a road covered in bitumen, equivalent to paved road in British English.
• shame or shame job – based on Aboriginal culture, where shame is a major factor, the word and phrase has been adapted in to general English in areas with a large Aboriginal population. As in "oh shame job man" and "shame, shame". Usually used by school-aged children.
• she'll be right - it will be okay, it'll turn out all right; a general pacifier
• sheltershed, lunch shed, weather shed or undercover area – in most States a simple detached building for the protection of school children from hostile weather
• shirty - polite version of shitty or pissed off, commonly when the person is getting angry or upset over something trivial, something against their plans or is being contradicted. ie "Don't get all shirty at me just because you bought the wrong beer"
• shit-hot – exclamation, excellent
• shits - can be used in several expressions including: shits me (or more strongly shits me to tears) and gives me the shits all meaning a combination of "annoys me" and "makes me angry."
• shout – to treat someone or to pay for something, especially a round of drinks
• showbag - full of shit, coming from the showbags sold at the Sydney & Melbourne Easter Shows.
• shonky – poorly made, of low quality; dishonest, dubious, underhanded;
• shoot through - to leave
• sick – very good; usually intensified in the phrase fully sick
• sickie – a day of absence from work, sometimes due to feigned illness. To "chuck a sickie" is to partake in such a day.
• skite - boast, brag
• slapper - easy or loose female
• slaughtered - either extremely tired or drunk
• sleepout - house verandah converted to a bedroom
• spare – very angry or upset e.g. "He went spare."
• spewin – (short for spewing) angry/disappointed eg. "I can't believe I missed the footy last night, I was spewin!".
• spiffy, pretty spiffy - great, excellent
• spit the dummy – get very upset at something, to throw a temper tantrum; in reference to a baby who becomes so angry, that he spits the dummy out of his mouth
• spruik – to promote or sell something; cf. British flog
• sprung - caught doing something wrong
• squiz – a look, as in "Take a squiz at the new house."
• station - a big farm/grazing property
• steak - a story irrelevant to the current line of conversation.
• stella - good, pleasing, thanks
• sticking out like dog's balls - very obvious
• stickybeak – to nose around
• stoked - very pleased
• strewth - exclamation, mild oath ("Strewth, that Chris is a bonzer bloke.")
• Strine or Strayan – Australian spoken English. From the Broad Australian pronunciation of "Australian". is an alternative. In the same vein, Straya is an attempt to express the pronunciation of "Australia".
• stuffed – exhausted, tired
• stuffed, I'll be - expression of surprise
• stung - hung over; disappointed
• sunbake - sunbathe
• super – short for superannuation, the Australian term for a private retirement pension.
• suss
  • suspicious; suspect
  • to figure something out, to uncover something/someone
  • to have something worked out, to have a plan
• swag - rolled up bedding etc. carried by a swagman
• sweet – fine, good

T

• ta - thank you, derived from infant speech
• taking the piss, making fun of (cf. taking the mickey)
• tall poppy syndrome - the attitude taken by common people of resenting those who, due to social, political or economic reasons act egotistical and flaunt their success without humility; the tendency to criticise these people
• tee-up - to set up (an appointment)
• tickets, to have on oneself - to have a high opinion of oneself
• tinny - small aluminium boat, a can of beer
• tinny, tin-arsed - lucky
• toey - on edge, nervous, distracted; horny
• too right – definitely; that is correct
• troppo, gone - to have escaped to a state of tropical madness; to have lost the veneer of civilisation after spending too long in the tropics
• true blue - completely loyal to a person or belief
• turps - turpentine, alcoholic drink
• two up - a gambling game played by flipping two coins simultaneously

U

• un-Australian – considered to be an example of unacceptable behaviour or policy in Australia or undertaken by Australians particularly when it violates cultural or traditional values, rarely used outside of politics or current affairs shows
• unco - clumsy, uncoordinated
• uni - university
• unit - flat, apartment
• up oneself - have a high opinion of oneself
• up somebody, get - to rebuke somebody

V

• veg out - relax in front of the TV (like a vegetable)

W

• wag – to skip school or work to do something else on someone else's time; to play truant
• walkabout - meaning to take a journey of significant duration with no specific destination. Originally a reference to the migration of indigenous Australians living a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Hence it's gone walkabout meaning it's lost, it can't be found.
• wing - to pass, to give; to undertake a task unprepared - "Have you prepared a speech? Nah, I'll just wing it."
• What do you think this is, bush week? - disbelieving response to some one you think is trying to con you. Predominately used in Queensland. eg. "The car's in a great condition." (obviously it's not) "What do you think this is, bush week?"
• Whatever you reckon - a dismissive to indicate that a person is lying or talking rubbish. Sometimes shortened to "whatever" co-existing with American usage and meaning of the same term.
• whinge - complain; similar to crying, but more commonly used for adults. In particular a "whinger" is someone who disagrees in an annoying fashion.
• whiteant - (verb) to criticise something to deter somebody from buying it. A car dealer might whiteant another dealer's cars or a real estate salesman might whiteant another agent's property
• wobbly - excitable behaviour ("I complained about the food and the waiter threw a wobbly.")
• wog - flu or trivial illness, also used as a derogatory term to describe Australians of Southern European descent.

X

Y

• yabber - talk (a lot)
• yakka - (noun) usually preceded by hard, (hard) work; also the grasstree Xanthorrhoea.
• yarn - (verb) to talk
• youse – you (plural)

Z