Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) the world of small farmers.

1890		Maitland Mercury (NSW) 8 Mar. 35/2: It was a direct infringement [...] and a dead loss to the lords of ‘cockydom‘.
1899		W. Aus. Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Oct. 8/6: Sacred to the tenets of old time cockydom.
1906		Sydney Morn. Herald 12 July 4/4: Others, through a run of bad seasons, have dropped from the ranks of squattocracy into cockdom.
1914		Mail )Adelaide) 18 July 9/1: The everyday rectangular crops which go to form the landscape in cockydom.
1925		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 17 Apr. 8/5: Farmer Allen remains in office as head of the Victoria Cockydom.
1932		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Dec. 7s/4: With every faculty I’ve got I’ve sought to bring cockydom to prosperity.
1945		Albany Advertiser 4 Oct. 4/3: This is not the first time sich little incidents have occurred in the history of cockydom.

see cockies’ clip n.

(Aus.) dry corncobs used as fuel.

1945

Baker Aus. Lang. 55: Cocky’s coal, corncobs used as fuel for a fire.

(Aus.) dawn.

1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 55: Cocky’s crow, dawn, or before dawn.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 232/1: cockie’s crow (sparrow crow) daybreak.

1. molasses, treacle or golden syrup.

1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 July 16/2: The cow-cocky is the most awful and wonderful of the genus [...]. ‘Cockies’ delight,’ by the way, isn’t his only culinary luxury. Let ‘C.J.D.’ taste ‘calf-pudding,’ and he’ll remember it for ever afterwards.
1910		C.E.W. Bean On the Wool Track 64: Cocky’s joy is golden syrup in 2-lb. tins, costing sevenpence—four times as cheap as jam.
1918		R.H. Knyvett ‘Over There’ with the Australians 137: We were also able to [...] relieve the monotony of marmalade jam with ‘bullocky’s joy.’ This last is merely molasses or ‘golden syrup’ called ‘bullocky’s joy,’ sometimes ‘cocky’s delight’ because it is the chief covering for slices of bread with the bullock-driver or cocky farmer in Australia.
1931		Sydney Mail 14 Oct. 2/4: You'll find some more damper in there, flybog, cocky’s joy, bullocky’s delight, axle grease, and a bit o’ junk. That day we had some doughboys and ‘underground mutton’.
1934		Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 1 Mar. 10/6: Choom seated himself and put away more bread and cocky’s delight.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 81: Consider, for example, these slang names for treacle and golden syrup: longtail, spare boy, Kidman’s blood mixture, Kidman’s joy, beetle bait, black jack, bullocky’s joy, cocky’s joy and tear-arse.
1947		D. Davin Gorse Blooms Pale 194: Hey, Shorty, go easy on that Cocky’s Joy. It’s not every day my old woman sends me a tin.
1953		Baker Aus. Speaks iii 81: Donkey lick or cocky’s delight, treacle or golden syrup.
1958		F.J. Hardy Four-Legged Lottery 53: Your scones are good, Cissie, even with cocky’s joy on them.
1960		J. Walker No Sunlight Singing (1966) 80: ‘Reach us the tin o’ cocky’s joy.’ Reg took the tin of syrup.
1972		G.W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 99: In Australia we find golden syrup or treacle referred to as cocky’s joy.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 29/2: cocky’s joy treacle or golden syrup, a favoured spead on bread in less affluent days in poorer and usually rural parts.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 185: Lingoisms like meaner than hungry tyson; the ot (Overland Telegraph); cocky’s joy (treacle or golden syrup) [...] are understood by, or relevant to, fewer and fewer Australians.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

2. wire fencing.

1974

P. Adam-Smith Barcoo Salute 131: The only damage I can recall was a fractured exhaust pipe and that was remedied on the track with ‘cocky’s joy’ (fencing wire).

1. binder twine.

1925

Horsham Times 19 May 1s/7: Used binder twine has many uses and is rightly called the cocky’s friend.

2. (Aus.) fencing wire.

1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 239: Dan and the boys, with hammer, nails and fencing wire, ‘the cockie’s friend,’ mended seats and fixed up stakes.
1980		(con. 1900s–30s) B. Hornadge Aus. Slanguage 126: To take up farming was to go cockying [...] fencing wire was known as cocky’s friend.

(N.Z.) grease, oil.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 49: cocky’s horror Grease and oil, which are never used by a dinkum cocky or farmer.

(Aus.) fencing wire, which has a variety of everyday uses in addition to marking boundaries.

1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 55: Cocky’s string, fencing wire.
1972		G.W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 99: Fencing wire (more often called cocky’s string perhaps).
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 29/2: cocky’s string fencing wire, called ‘cocky’s friend’ in Australia.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

see under cow n.¹

(Aus.) a simile of a dry (and foul-tasting) mouth, usu. used to represent the unpleasant taste that accompanies a severe hangover .

1989		M. Walker How to Kiss a Crocodile 99: I guess the floor of the cockie’s cage, which is what their mouths must have been like, was pretty awful after the night’s events.
2010		(con. 1950s) R.K. Allen Ballina Boy 33: ‘Tongue’s as dry as the bottom of a cockie's cage. Reckons ’e ’as a belly ache’.
2013		‘IMA Social Menace’ Smart Zombie [ebook] ‘Stop it Arthur, my mouth feels like the bottom of a cockie’s cage,’ he croaked.

(Aus.) useless, impotent, a non-participant.

1947		Mirror (Perth, WA) 11 Jan. 3/5: When he emerged [...] he stood on the running board of their car, remarked, ‘I’m like the cocky on the biscuit tin ... I’m just not in it’.
1949		Durham and Gloucester Advertiser (NSW) 21 May 3/3: [He] said he was like ‘Cocky’ on the biscuit tin — on the outside.
1952		Scone Advocate (NSW) 19 Sept. 4/3: It was hardly , neces sary to make Perc. stand up, like the cocky on the biscuit tin he has been seen everywhere.
1965		Canberra Times 23 Mar. 5/8: Mr. Fraser had to sit ‘like cocky on the biscuit tin’ and watch other Members of Parliament vole on an issue which had already been determined.
1981		National Times 1 Feb. 14: ‘Left out like the cocky on the biscuit tin’ [...] dates from the precellophane days when Arnott’s biscuits were sold from a tin embellished with a parrot emblem. The cocky was on it and not in it; so the phrase describes a loser or someone left out [GAW4].
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 15: Cocky on the biscuit tin: An extremely complicated expression which, visually, owes its origin to the rosella parrot eating a Sao as shown on large tins of Arnott’s biscuits. [...] The literal translation is rhyming slang for ‘on the outside looking in.’.
1986		R. Fitzgerald Pushed from the Wings (1989) 41: But at least he was involved. Not like the bird on the biscuit tin.
1991		R.G. Barratt ‘I Saw That’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Littlemore’s like the parrot on the biscuit tin — not quite in it.
1991–2002		R. Treborlang ‘Famous Birds’ 🌐 ‘Out Like The Cocky on the Biscuit Tin’ This dates from the pre plastic-wrapper days when Arnott’s biscuits were sold from a tin embellished with a parrot emblem. The cocky was on it and not in it, so the phrase describes a loser or someone left out of something.

(Aus./N.Z.) a small-scale sheep farmer.

1888		H.S. Russell Genesis of Qld 251: I had so hoped that that capital fellow, George Mocatta (whose sheep ’Cocky’ Rogers had settled down at Grantham), would have come with us.
1897		Worker (Sydney) 7 Aug. 3/3: Now, Mr Editor, I wish all our lads to be warned against those sheep cockeys who are going to cut down the price [AND].
1917		Sydney Morn. Herald 13 Aug. 5/5: Sheep Cocky Writes:— There is not the slightest doubt the war time profits tax is going to curtail stock breeding.
1924		Advocate (Burnie, Tas.) 9 Feb. 10/2: Down in the Midlands a sheep cocky had engaged an immigrant as a farm hand.
1932		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 May 20/2: A hardened old sheep cocky in W.A... discovered that a dingo had invaded the sanctity of his paddocks.
1948		V. Palmer Golconda 130: He came upon a German sheep-cocky’s horse and sulky [AND].
1950		West Australian (Perth) 21 June 17/2: Training colouired labour for part-time seasonal work for the sheep ‘cocky’ is not the answer.
1963		Guardian 11 Nov. 7/6: An old sheep cocky from Canterbury was [etc].
1973		M. Harris Angry Eye 121: I’m going to talk it over with [...] our sheep-cocky and bushman.
1977		C. Mccullough Thorn Birds 227: Some of the sheep cockies must have given you the glad eye [AND].
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.