Australian Slang - Local Lingo
Unique Phrases - Memorable Quotes - M
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
MABO - The Mabo Case was a significant legal case in Australia that recognised the land rights of the Meriam people, traditional owners of the Murray Islands
MACCAS - McDonalds
MAD AS A CUT SNAKE - angry; crazy
MAD AS A GUM TREE FULL OF GALAHS - crazy
MAD AS A MEAT AXE - crazy
MAD MICK AND BANJO - pick and shovel (soldier slang WW1)
MAFEESH - nothing (soldier slang WW1)
MAGGED - run off at the mouth
MAGGIE - magpie
MAGIC PUDDING - endless resource; From a 1918 Australian children's book by Norman Lindsay about a magic talking pudding named Albert which, no matter how often he is eaten, always reforms in order to be eaten again
MAGPIE LARK - pee-wee
MAINTAIN YOUR RAGE AND ENTHUSIASM FOR THE CAMPAIGN - Gough Whitlam after the dismissal
MAKARRATA - Yolngu-word. Makarrata literally means a spear penetrating, usually the thigh, of a person that has done wrong - so that they cannot hunt anymore, that they cannot walk properly, that they cannot run properly; to maim them, to settle them down, to calm them — that's Makarrata (ABC)
MAKE A BLUE - make a mistake
MAKE A GALAH OF YOURSELF - behave foolishly
MAKE A QUID - make a living
MAKE A TOMMY ROOK - make a booking on the racecourse (rhyming slang 1890s)
MAKE A WELTER OF - take advantage of
MAKING TUCKER - making a living (1858)
MALLEE - the scrub
MALLEE ROOT - tree roots found in Victoria's Mallee region that are long burning and make a hot fire
MANILLA HAT - hat made of imported fibres
MANNA - dried juice of sweet taste obtained from incisions in the bark of various trees (Morris 1898)
MARALINGA - site of British nuclear tests 1956 and 1963. Part of the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia
MARCHING KOALAS - The Marching Koalas were formed in 1982 as a band from the Hunter Region of NSW representing local high schools and the community
MARK, (A GOOD MARK) - a person who pays his men their wages without delay and to whom you may sell anyting safely (Morris 1898)
MATE - term of friendship or greeting
MATESHIP - the Australian male's strong trust in his fellow man
MATELOTS - Sailors
MATE'S RATES - lower price for friends
MATILDA - swag; German in origin
MAY YOUR CHOOKS TURN INTO EMUS AND KICK YOUR DUNNY DOOR DOWN - a way of wishing someone bad luck
McMANSION - Coined during the urban sprawl of the 90s, when large homes began to dominate the outer suburbs
MELBOURNE CUP - Australia's most famous annual thoroughbred horse race. Conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne. The event starts at 3:00 pm on the first Tuesday of November and is known as "the race that stops the nation". First held in 1861
MELON-HOLE - squatter's name for a kind of honey-combing of the surface in interior plains, dangerous to horsemen and ascribed to the work of the Paddy-melon(Morris 1898)
MERINO - strong Spanish breed of sheep inured to extremes of heat and cold, which when interbed, produced extraordinary amounts of long fibred wool; the basis of Australia's wealth for more than a century
MERINO (PURE MERINO) - a term for the very first families of the early colony as the pure merino is the most valuable sheep (Morris 1898)
METHO - methylated spiritsts
MEXICAN - someone from Victoria
MICK - an Irish catholic
MICKY - a term used for a wild bull, said to have originated in Gippsland, Victoria
MIDDLE OF NOWHERE - in the outback; far away
MIDDY - a measured glass of beer (10oz)
MIGALOO - pure white adult humpback whale first spotted in 1991 off Byron Bay. Humpack whales migrate along the east coast of Australia from Antarctica to breed in the warm tropical waters near the Great Barrier Reef
MICKY MOUSE - grouse, a good result
MIKE (to do a) - to pretend to be working, to hang about
MILKO - milkman
MILKSHAKE DUCK - to be popular in the media at first but later to lose favour because of questionable behaviour
MILLS PILLS - hand grenades (soldier slang WW1)
MIND YOUR P's AND Q's - mind your manners; observe correct etiquette
MING - Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies (whose surname is pronounced 'Mingis' in Scotland); he reminded his enemies of the villain of the popular Buck Rogers comic strip of the 1930s Ming the Merciless
MINTIES - mint flavoured lolly created in 1922
MISERABLE AS A BANDICOOT - extremely unhappy
MISERABLE GHOSTS - Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described former prime minister Kevin Rudd as a miserable ghost in 2018 because after Rudd ceased to be prime minister he stayed in parliament and did everything he could to overthrow his successor. Ironically the term was later applied to Malcolm Turnbull himself
MISERY GUTS - miserable person
MISSUS - wife
MOB - A way to refer to a group of Aboriginal people who have a connection to one another.
MOB - a lot of cattle
MOB - bushranging gang
MOB - army unit
MOCK GOOSE - colonial recipe using butter beans or mutton and other ingredients when unable to afford a goose
MOGGIE - cat
MOKE - a common knockabout horse (Franklin)
MOLES - moleskin breeches
MOLESKINS – trousers of heavy, closely-woven cotton material worn mostly by stockmen
MOLLY DOOKER - left handed person
MONGREL - dispicable person; also flamin mongrel
MONK - another name for Friar Bird (Morris 1898)
MONKEY - padlock (criminal slang 1925)
MONKEY - 500 pounds (criminal slang 1950s)
MONTE - a sure thing (in betting)
MOOLAH - money
MOOMBA - Melbourne Festival
MOOMBA - IT'S AN OLD ABORIGINAL WORD MEANING LET'S GET TOGETHER AND HAVE FUN . THEY GAVE US THE WORD BECAUSE THEY HAD NO FURTHER USE FOR IT. - Barry Humphries
MOON - prison slang for sentence of one month in gaol (1893)
MOON - a process in opossum-shooting where the hunter walked back from a tree to get the various branches between him and the moon to locate the possum (Morris 1898)
MOPOKE - native bird with a mournful cry; hence a dreary indiviual; a person remarkable for nothing new in common conversation c. 1845
MORE FRONT THAN MARK FOYS - over confidant person
MORE MONEY THAN YOU CAN POKE A STICK AT - a rich person
MORE THAN YOU CAN POKE A STICK AT - more than you can handle
MORE NUTS THAN THE BRIDGE - person who is a bit crazy - nuts being of the Sydney Harbour bridge
MORETON BAY FIGS - cigs (cigarettes)
MORGAGE BELT - area where many people are paying off a mortgage on their home, regarded as electorally unpredictable
MORGY - something to eat (soldier slang WW1)
MOSES, (prickly) - bushman's name for Mimosa(Morris 1898)
MOTZA - (motzer) a lot of money (criminal slang 1950s)
MOUTH LIKE THE BOTTOM OF A COCKIE'S CAGE - dry mouth
MOZ - work (prison slang c. 1893)
MOZZIE – Mosquito
MOZZLE - luck
MR. SQUIGGLE - early Australian TV children's program. Creator Australian illustrator, cartoonist and puppeteer Norman Hetherington (1921-2010)
MUCKING AROUND - joking
MUD ARMY - volunteers assisting victims of the 2010/2011 floods in South East Queensland
MUDDY - mud crab
MUD-FAT - fat as mud, very fat (used to describe livestock) (Morris 1898)
MUD MAP - map drawn on the ground
MUG - long drawn-out lover's kiss (1921)
MUG - a useless person
MUG'S GAME - unrewarding activity
MUG GUNNERS - machine gunners (WW2)
MUG PUNTERS - amateur gamblers
MULGA - acacia scrub of the outback
MULGA WIRE - also bush telegraph - country rumour network. c. 1893
MULLOCK - waste rock or earth
MULLOCKY - rubbishy, messy
MULLOCK OVER - shearing slang for careless or incomplete shearing (Morris 1898)
MULLY GRUBBER - cricket - a ball delivered so that it stays very low after pitching.
MUNCHIES - snack food
MUNGAREE - food (WW2)
MUNGO MAN - discovered in Mungo National Park, New South Wales, lived between 40,000 – 68,000 years ago.
MURRAY COD - fresh water fish found in the Murray river. Similar to a fish found in the Peel river by Sir T. Mitchell (Morris 1898)
MURRAY COD - on the nod (rhyming slang) betting on credit
MURRUMBIDGEE WHALER - a swagman who follows the course of a river; also a lazy swagman who spends six months of the year snoozing under the Murrumbidgee gum trees instead of working
MUSTER - round up livestock
MUTTONBIRDING - seasonal harvesting of the chicks of petrels for food, oil and feathers by recreational or commercial hunters
MYALL - in 1895 described as one of the wild blacks of the North of Australia
MYALL CREEK MASSACRE - at Myall Creek, NSW, cold-blooded slaughter of natives at the hands of station-hands, some of whom were later executed
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