Australian Slang - Local Lingo
Unique Phrases - Memorable Quotes - G
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
GABBA - Brisbane cricket ground at Woolloongabba
GABIT - one who likes eating; reference to bushranger Matthew Gabbett
G'DAY – Hello
GALAH – native bird renowned for its antics, like hanging upside down on telephrone wires, therefore a noisy, stupid person
GALLIED - frightened
GALLIPOLI GALLOP - dysentery (WW1)
GALOOT - clumsy, foolish man; derived from word used for soldier
GALOOT - a yokel - a heavy country fellow (Franklin)
GALVO - galvanized iron
GAME AS NED KELLY - brave; the ultimate Australian compliment
GAMMON - to deceive
GAMMY LEG - crippled or injured leg
GANDER - take a look
GANG-GANG - aboriginal word for a kind of cockatoo that is grey with a red head
GARBAGE GUTS- greedy
GARBOS - garbologists; garbage collectors
GAZZA - short for Garry
GAZZOB - a fool or a blunderer
GEEBUNG - native word adopted by settlers, an Ausralian wild fruit
GEEBUNGS AND FIVE CORNERS - Geebungs and Five corners – once regarded as delicacies often collected in the bush by young boys. The five corner (Styphelia incarnata) is a small greenish berry growing on a shrub in sandy soil. The fruit is enclosed in a capsule composed of five small leaves, hence the name. The geebung (Persoonia lanceolata) is a greenish berry, larger than the five corner. They once grew in the Hamilton district NSW
GEEBUNG - an Australian born money grubber (1859)
GEE GEES - race horses
GEEK - take a look
GEE WHIZZ - expressing surprise
GENTLEMAN GEORGE - description of a remittance man from W. A. Horn's 'Bush Echoes' - Gentleman George in his youthful days was the pride of the Eighth Hussars, He's only a bronzed old teamster now in the land of the red galahs...
GENTRY - ironic term for bushranger
GET A GUERNSEY - receive an award
GET A HANDLE ON - understand
GET A WRIGGLE ON - hurry up
GET DOWN OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE - stop acting superior
GET OFF THE GRASS - unbelievable; tell the truth
GET OFF WITH A SCRATCH - sentenced to 12 months in jail
GET ON YOUR GOAT - someone annoying you
GET OUT OF THE CRAZY JANE - get out of the rain (rhyming slang 1890s)
GET STUFFED - dismissal after a disagreement
GET THE BOOT - get sacked
GET THE DRIFT - understand
GET THE RUN (to) - to be discharged
GET THE WIND UP - soldier slang for a scare (WW1)
GETTING OFF AT REDFERN - referrring to contraceptive technique coitus interruptus
GET YOUR DANDER UP - get upset
G'DAY, YOU OLD BASTARD ! - an Aussie greeting, one man to another (c. WW2)
GHILGAI also GILGAI - aboriginal word formerly used by white men near Bourke NSW to denote saucer shaped depression in ground which formed a natural reservoir for rainwater (Morris 1898)
GIBBER - a small rock
GIBBER PLAINS - desert surface covered with closely packed rock fragments
GIBBER - GUNYAH - home in a cave; aboriginal
GIDDEA, GIDYA OR GIDGEE - aboriginal word of NSW and Qld for a species of Acacia(Morris 1898)
GILGAI COUNTRY - low-lyng land with natural basins subject to flooding (Baker)
GINGER BEERS - engineers (military)
GINGER MEGS - popular and long-running comic strip created in the early 1920s by Jimmy Bancks
GINGER MEGS - legs
GINK - anybody (WW2)
GIVE BEST - to acknowledge superiority or to give up trying at anything (Morris 1898)
GIVE IT A BREAK - stop talking!
GIVE IT A CRACK - give it a try
GIVE A BUM STEER - mislead
GIVE IT A BURL - give it a try
GIVE IT A GO - give it a try
GIVE IT SOME HERBS - adding extra power or putting on extra speed (from cooking, adding more herbs)
GIVE SOMEONE A SERVE - give them a piece of your mind
GIVE SKY HIGH - (to) - to scold in an immoderate way
GIVE THEM A BURL - give them a good spin (two-up)
GIVE US A HEADS UP - let us know
GIVEN THE BULLET - sacked
GIVES THE PIP - bores; annoys (Franklin)
GLORY BOX - box in which a young woman gathers items to use after marriage
GLUE-POT - part of a road so bad that the coach or buggy got stuck (Morris 1898)
GNARLY - awesome (surfing term)
GOB - mouth
GOBFUL - abuse
GOB SMACKED - surprise
GO BUSH - leave home; live rough
GOD BOTHERER - religious person
GOD BLESS AMERICA, GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, GOD DEFEND NEW ZEALAND AND THANK CHRIST FOR AUSTRALIA - Russell Crowe
GOES DOWN LIKE A LEAD BALLOON - a failure
GO FOR IT - expression of encouragement
GOING OFF - things are busy
GOING OFF AT- telling someone off
GOING TROPPO - going crazy; angry
GOING WALKABOUT - travelling
GOLDEN CASKET LOTTERY - est. c. 1916 to pay for soldier repatriation (QLD)
GOLDEN GUITAR AWARDS - Country music festival awards held annually in Tamworth
GOLDEN MILE - Kalgoorlie
GOLD FISH - tin herrings (WW2)
GO LEMONY - become angry
GONE TROPPO - lost grip on reality
GONE WALKABOUT - item that is misplaced or lost
GONE WEST - dead (soldier slang WW1)
GONG - medal (military)
GONNA -going to
GOODIES - treats, usually lollies
GOOD IRON - commendation; from game of quoits throwing the ring over the iron
GOOD-O. Everythings all right
GOOD OIL - reliable information (WW1)
GOOD SPORT - fair person
GOOD ON YA – goodonyer; term of approval; good work
GOOF OFF - muck around
GOOG - as full as a goog = drunk
GOOGY-EGG - child s name for a boiled egg
GOOLEY - a stone
GOOLEY - a single bomb dropped from a plane
GOON – flagon of wine
GOOSE - insult describing someone considered foolish
GO DOWN THE GURGLER - go broke
GO BANANAS - become excited or angry
GO ON A SPREE - go on a drinking binge
GO ROUND WITH - Go out together, date. 1970s
GOSFORD SKIRT - A very short skirt, so called because the NSW city of Gosford is close to a town called The Entrance.
GO TO BUGGERY - go away; leave me alone
GO THE KNUCKLE - engage in a fist fight with another person
GO UNDER - fail; collapse
GO UP IN SMOKE - fail, collapse; lose
GOVERNMENT MEN - convicts
GOVERNMENT STROKE - a lazy style of doing work (Morris 1898)
GO WALKABOUT - Aboriginal - living a nomadic life
GOYDER'S LINE - George Goyder established the margin between reliable and unreliable rainfall regions in South Australia 150 years ago
GRAFT - to work hard and steadily (Franklin)
GRAFTER - a good worker (WW2)
GRANNY FLAT - detached building on your property where your mother or father might live.
GRAPPLING IRONS - spurs (WW1)
GRASSHOPPER - Canberra term for weekend visitors to the capital; they eat everything in sight and never have a drink
GREASING THE SWAG STRAPS - Swagman's language time to move on
GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN - underground reservoir. is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, stretching over 1,700,000 square kilometres
GREAT AUSTRALIAN ADJECTIVE - Bloody
GREAT AUSTRALIAN BIGHT - large oceanic open bay off the central and western parts of the south coast of mainland Australia
GREAT AUSTRALIAN DREAM - a belief that in Australia, home-ownership can lead to a better life and is an expression of success and security
GREAT-HEARTED MEN - 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
GREAT SOUTHERN LAND - a single released in 1982 by the Australian rock band Icehouse.
GREAT WHITE SHARK - Nick name of golfer Greg Norman
GREEN - inexperienced person
GREEN AND GOLD - Australia's national colours, established under Bob Hawke's government 1980s
GREEN GROCER - (Cyclochila australasiae) a species of cicada distributed through coastal regions of southeastern Australia
GREENIE - environmentalist
GREEN WHISTLE - temporary analgesic given to trauma patients
GREY NOMAD - retired person who travels Australia usually in a caravan
GRIND THEM INTO THE DUST - Quote - Don Bradman - When you play test cricket, you don't give the Englishmen an inch. Play it tough, all the way. Grind them into the dust
GRINDER - a small coin of money
GRIZZLE - complain
GROG - alcohol
GROG SHOP/ GROG SHANTY - pub or bottle shop
GROMMET - young surfer
GRONK - idiot, lacking in social skills
GROUSE - great; very good
GRUB - food
GRUBBY BASTARD - lecher
GRUMBLEBUM - complainer
GRUNDIES - underwear/ undies
GUFF - foolish talk
GUFFED - deceived
GULLY RAKER - a long whip (Morris 1898)
GULLY RAKING - stealing unbranded livestock from distant station
GUMMY / GUMMIE - user of Gumtree
GUM SUCKER - description of young Australian because of their habit of eating the gum of the wattle tree
GUM-SUCKER - native of Tasmania because of the abundance of gum trees in Tasmanian forests 1887
GUM TREE (up a gum tree) - completely lost or confused
GUN - expert shearer
GUNDAGAI FLOODS - after the disastrous 1851 bushfires came great floods in which the town of Gundagai was swept away when the Murrumbidgee burst its banks
GUN FIRE BREAKFAST - originally British however popular in Australia now as a follow-up to the Anzac Dawn service
GUNYAH - temporary shelter from sheets of bark at NSW goldfields. From Dharuk Aboriginal language
GUTLESS WONDER - a coward
GUTSER (come a gutser) - to fall or fail
GUYVER - pretence; make believe. Jewish origin
GYP - swindle
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