| Billabong: | waterhole |
| Billy: | tin container used to boil water |
| Blowfly: | a fly which deposits eggs or legless larvae (maggots) in carcasses, meat, sores or wounds |
| Bonzer: | excellent |
| Bunyip: | a creature in Aboriginal legends |
| Chook: | domestic chicken |
| Cockatoo: | a crested parrot |
| ‘Cocky’s corsets’: | something good |
| ‘Come a cropper’: | fall |
| Cooee: | a call used to attract attention in the bush. It rises in pitch on the last syllable—ee. |
| ‘Cop this’: | look at this |
| Damper: | a kind of bread made from flour and water, which is cooked in hot coals or ash |
| Dill: | a silly person |
| Dingo: | Australian wild dog, often brownish-yellow with pointy ears. It doesn’t bark, but howls. Dingoes are known for attacking farm animals, such as sheep. |
| Dogger: | someone who catches dingoes for payment |
| Dray: | a cart with no sides, used for heavy loads |
| Drover: | someone who drives cattle to a market, often over a long distance |
| Dunny: | outside toilet |
| Dust devil: | dust caught in a whirlwind |
| Emu: | a tall Australian bird, which cannot fly |
| Fair dinkum: | true |
| Gammy: | injured |
| Goanna: | a large Australian monitor lizard |
| Gully: | a small valley, usually cut by water |
| Hander: | to be hit on the hand at school as a punishment |
| Hessian: | coarse, rough cloth made from jute, used for sacks or carpet backing |
| Honeybag: | native Australian beehive |
| Joey: | baby kangaroo |
| ‘Kick the bushes’: | go to the toilet in the open air, usually behind a bush |
| ‘Knock me bandy’: | to be surprised |
| Knucklebones: | animal knuckles, usually from sheep, used for playing a game |
| Koala: | a furry, grey, Australian marsupial with big ears, that lives in gum trees |
| Lanoline: | fat from sheep’s wool |
| Meat safe: | a cabinet which keeps food cool |
| Ning-nong: | silly person |
| Possum: | Australian marsupial that lives in trees and is most active at night |
| Quandong: | Australian native fruit |
| Rattler: | freight train. ‘Riding the rattler’ meant jumping onboard without a ticket, to get a free ride. |
| Saltbush: | hardy, low-growing drought-resistant plant found in the Australian bush |
| Scrub: | a large area that is covered with trees or shrubs, particularly in the Australian bush |
| Skink: | a small lizard |
| Smoko: | tea-break |
| Spinifex: | spiky grass that grows in inland Australia |
| Squeezebox: | accordion |
| Sundowner: | a bush traveller who arrives at a homestead at sundown, too late to do any work |
| Swagman (or swaggie): |
a bush traveller who carries a swag (a bundle of belongings) and earns money from odd jobs or gifts |
| Tank stand: | a framework to support a rainwater tank |
| ‘The big spit’: | vomit |
| Three-cornered jacks: | small, hard prickles |
| ‘Tickets on yourself’: | conceited, thinking too much of yourself |
| Tucker: | food |
| ‘What d’ya know’: | Australian greeting, a way of saying hello |
| Wombat: | a burrowing marsupial animal |