Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also Aussy, (Aus.) a wound gained during WWI that was sufficiently incapacitating to ensure one was sent home to Australia from the front.

[1919		C.H. Thorp Handful of Ausseys 201: I ’eard about the stunts some uv our blokes work [...] so they can be sent out to Aussie [...] if yer inject iodine inter the knee [...] and tap it with yer fingers for a few hours — these things all make yer knee get big [...] an’ the M.O. don’t know but what yer got sine-vitas, which means Aussie].
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 9: AUSSY [...] (3) A wound of sufficient severity to cause its recipient to be invalided to Australia.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: aussie [...] (3) A wound of sufficient severity to warrant the return of the recipient to Australia.

2. (also Aussieland, aussy) Australia.

1918		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 Aug. 4/1: You must never fret or worry, be as gentle as a lamb, / ’Cause if you were back in Aussie you’d ride free upon a tram.
1918		Bendigonian(Vic) 20 June 30/4: A letter, yes, for you, from Aussie-land; / And thus with words of bright and kindly cheer.
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 9: aussy (1) Australia.
1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 384: Aussie (Also Aussie-Land). Australia, as well as an Australian soldier.
1921		(con. WWI) E. Lynch Somme Mud 167: Oh! France it is a failure, / Take me back to Australia. / Aussie is the place for me.
1924		E.G. Murphy ‘’Is ’Arp’ in Dryblower’s Verses 10: A pommy pea named ’Arry ’Urst, / But two years out in Aussie-land, / Went on a roarin’, ragin’ burst.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 388: If we flew to Aussie together, we’d have to get married.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats xi: It was a bloody good life we led back in Aussie.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 217: I feel a bit lost — thousands of miles from Aussie, foreigners everywhere.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 154: Give yer the drum, Mister Risky [...] Come to Aussie an’ start spoutin’ Commo bull an’ the mob’ll wipe yer.
1973		(con. 1930s) F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 17: ‘Bet you never thought you be on the track in Aussie when yous left England,’ the cook remarked with a smile.
1981		W. Russell Educating Rita II vii: What do you think I’ll do? Aussie? It’s a paradise for the likes of me.
2000		Ozwords Apr. 1: It was the First World War that produced the term Aussie for ‘Australia’ [...] and for ‘Australian soldier’ [...] and more generally for ‘an Australian’ or ‘Australian’ (1927: ‘Our much prized Aussie hats’).
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 180: The more I see the way poor old Aussieland is going the madder I become.

3. (also Aussey, Aussielander) an Australian; also as term of address; cit. 1918 (O’Brien) generic for Australians as a group.

1913		Referee (Sydney) 29 Jan. 15/2: [of a racing yacht] ‘Aussie’ as the ‘heads’ prefer to call Australian, won by 1min 14sec from the second boat,.
1915		Farmer & Settler (NSW) 20 July 2/7: [headline] ‘Aussies’ in hospital.
1918		C.J. Dennis ‘A Digger’s Tale’ in Chisholm (1951) 100: Us Aussies was the goods in London town / When I was there.
1918		Ballarat Star (Vic) 30 Dec. 2/1: Tommy Atkins is inclined to play cricket - but bush football for the Aussielander!
1918		H.V. O’Brien diary 1 Dec. Wine, Women and War (1926) 277: Yvonne finally got the Americans out. Aussie followed.
1919		C.H. Thorp Handful of Auuseys 181: I suppose she thinks I’m just a rough sort of Aussey.
1919		W.R. Kuhn Company A 48: The platoon had a merry little party that night with the Aussies.
1924		L. O’Neil Dinkum Aussie and Other Poems 2: For a red-blooded Aussie is he.
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 164: Have you ever heard an Aussie swear?
1929		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 Apr. 10/2: Matches between foreign fighters [...] hold a certain amount of attraction for the keenly-criticising Aussielander, but to get his undivided interest and attention, and to hold on to it, the promoter must have at his command local talent.
1932		(con. WWI) L. Mann Flesh in Armour 13: ‘Won’t you sit down, Aussie?’.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 286: You hardly hear of a confidence man who is not an Australian; there’s a little colony of them in London, Aussies to a man.
1941		F. Sargeson ‘That Summer’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 154: One of those hard faces all covered with wrinkles like Aussies have.
1949		Blue Mountains Advertiser (Katoomba, NSW) 22 Apr. 8/3: Aussielanders! Aussielanders! Wherever you may be, we Britons, greet you heart and hand, though far across the sea.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 11: ‘You don’t look like an Australian but you talk like one.’ ‘Me, not an Aussie?’.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 5: As an Aussie once said to me [etc].
1961		(con. WW2) R. Poole London E1 (2012) 260: They come from all over the world: Kiwis, Aussies, Yanks.
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 79: What kind of people are these Aussies after all?
1971		E. Taylor Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1982) 48: ‘I don’t want a damned Aussie telling me about my English weather’.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 48: Driving off with the British Tommy’s usual injunction to ‘give ’em fook, Aussie’.
1986		J. Sullivan ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Who’s the big-mouth Aussie, Mike?
1998		Indep. Mag. 25 July 7: A lantern-jawed Aussie tweaked the broad brim of his bush hat.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 4: Japs, Yanks, Krauts, Aussies — you name it, we robbed them.
2010		Sun. Times Sport 19 Dec. 25/4: [Shane Warne] is the epitome of a fair-dinkum Aussie.

4. the Australian language.

1941

A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 8 Aug. [synd. cartoon strip] Can’t yer [i.e. an intellectual] put it in dinki-di Aussie?

5. (UK black) an ounce of a given drug [play on oz-ie/Aussie].

2008

A. Wheatle Dirty South 163: Six little green Aussies [...] Get your scissors, scales, and your bags .