About the Australian Dictionary

The Australian Dictionary is a free, fast guide to Australian slang and colloquial Australian English. It has 2512 entries, from everyday words like arvo and servo to classic expressions like fair dinkum and bush words like billabong and swagman.

How entries are written

• Meaning — a plain-English definition. Words that are old-fashioned are labelled dated; rude or insulting words are clearly labelled vulgar, derogatory or offensive. Ethnic and racial slurs are left out. Terms used mainly in one state or city are labelled with their region.
• Example — a sentence showing how the word is typically used.
• Origin — given only where the history of the word is reasonably well established. Plenty of Aussie slang has a murky past, and popular stories about where a word “really” comes from are often folk etymology. In those cases the entry simply says “Origin unknown”.

Sources and history

australiandictionary.org has been online since the early 2010s. Some of the older vocabulary on the site comes from two classic public-domain works: Edward E. Morris's Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages (1898) and the glossary of C. J. Dennis's The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915). Those entries are marked dated. For serious research, the Australian National Dictionary and the Macquarie Dictionary are the standard references.

Suggestions and corrections

Australian slang keeps changing. If you think an entry is wrong or a well-known word is missing, we'd love to hear about it.