Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./N.Z.) beautiful, splendid.

1915		Truth (Wellington) 22 May 7: [headline] Berryman’s Beaut Bride.
1939		Barrier Miner *Broken Hill, NSW) 5 Jan. 3/4: They were having a beaut time.
c.1943		J.H. Taylor ‘The Digger’s Letter to His Wife’ in Baker (1966) 181: You trimmer, you’re bonzer, you’re beaut.
1945		J. Henderson Gunner Inglorious (1974) 172: He hauled off and flattened one with a beauty swipe.
1947		Western Mail (Perth) 16 Jan. 45/2: We are having a beaut holiday in the Y.M.C.A. camp.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 56: Good morning. It’s a beaut day. [Ibid.] 139: She looked beaut in a green costume.
1957		‘Neville Shute’ On the Beach 71: It’s been a beaut evening.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 84: She’s a beaut buildin’, but.
1964		R. Helmer Stag Party 105: He got a beauty new likka he make hisself.
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 51: Up drove another one, in a Rolls-Royce, and a beaut sheila with him.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 174: She was very motherly towards me then and it was beaut.
1981		G. Young Slow Boats to China (1983) 317: He’s got a beaut bike.
1994		Orsman & Hurley Beaut Little Bk NZ Slang n.p.: It’s a well-known fact that Kiwis have their own way of talking, and without a guide you can easily come a greaser. Have a gink at this beaut little book, and you won't need to feel a nong any more.
1996		Penguin Bk of More Aus. Jokes 29: Hey, mate, have you ever slept in bed with a beaut bluey sheila like that one?
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 93: ‘How are you?’ ‘Bloody beaudy, mate’.
2001		(con. 1945–6) P. Doyle Devil’s Jump (2008) 119: I can see from down here that you’ve done beaut job.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] ‘Gets the breeze, kids can play on the sand. Real nice.’ ‘Sounds beaut’.