Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) a racehorse noted for its tenacity and fight.

1885		Sportsman (Melbourne) 26 Aug. 1/2: Commotion (9st. 12lb.) is such a 'battler' over any distance that he cannot be considered 'out' of any race with anything under 10st. on his back.
1893		Wagga Wagga Advertiser (NSW) 5 Sept. 2/7: E. Davis has again taken up Babette, who looks [...] big and blooming. The honest old battler will not, however, be put into work for some time.
1897		Albury Banner (NSW) 21 May 18/1: Little Ben is a battler that may have a chance, but from my view I should take Rubentstein, Angle, and Hark to be a triplet from which the winner should come.
1911		Co-operator (Sydney) 2 Mar. 3/2: Braw Scot [...] is possessed of great dash, and he showed himself a bit of a battler last week, when under pressure in the Hawksburn Handicap.
1980		K. Garvey Shout for the Adder 141: [T]he big chestnut gelding that stood in the adjacent stall [...] the tough old battler, the iron horse that Steve Lynch had landed before the judge after many a hard-fought battle.
2012		M. Benns Fixed [ebook] [I]t would be hard to explain how just a few weeks in Weightman’s stables had turned an old battler like Our Equal Opportunity from a zero to a hero.

2. a small-time race-course better who tries to live on their winnings, or a small-time owner/trainer who struggles to make a living.

1886		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 June 7/2: He was a Cabbage Garden ‘battler,’ [...] and starting off with a 2 sovs. investment, played his game so well, that he went home a winner of over £900.
1890		Referee (Sydney) 5 Mar. 3/2: Cleland and Jack Hewitt were the popular fancies in the next, but Hewitt, who can run and stay both, if you ask us, won by three yards from Cassimer [...] Evens the field was the cry of the big battlers at the end.
1891		Eve. News (Sydney) 4 Nov. 5/4: Thousands are on the lawn and paddock, while the birdcage is thronged with those who wish to get a straight tip from the various trainers and jockeys [...] among them are a few of the old battlers, who accost you with, ‘Do you know anything, sir?’ .
1896		Champion (Melbourne) 13 June 9/1: Hera, the older mare of the pair, is owned by a rich man, Last Glen by a poor man, a penciller by profession, and a battler by force of circumstances.
1906		Sydney Sportsman 11 Apr. 4/4: Good few shemale battlers or ‘rattlers’ missing. Probably hadn’t got over effects of City Tatt’s picnic, which took place previous day.
1928		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 May 9/2: Of course, at the tail end of the season as at present when fewer meetings are held the battlers are ‘chasing their chaff money,’ and this to some extent accounts for the large number of starters.
1945		T. Ronan Strangers on the Ophir 42: ‘He got Paddy the job of fixing up the racecourse which is good money for some local battler as a rule’.
1965		F. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker (1980) 107: ‘I’m only a battler. Can’t afford to take short prices.’.
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 124: [I]t is primarily a sport for ‘battlers’ who otherwise would never get the chance to know the thrills that come to a rich and successful racehorse owner.
1975		Hardy & Mulley Needy and Greedy 27: At a place called Dederang...there was an annual race meeting, the main event being the Dederang Handicap. One year a horse trained by a battler Andy Simpson won it.
1983		Hibberd and Hutchinson Barracker’s Bible 26: battler R[acing] A small time punter, attempting to survive from the track.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 13/2: battler [...] a petty punter living on winnings.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

3. (Aus.) one who uses natural, rather than social or economic, advantages to pursue the struggle for existence and is seen as brave in doing so.

1889		Ballarat Star (Vic.) 13 July 4/8: Never within the memory of the most frosty-faced old battler have the probable results of the Grand National events been so much unshrouded in uncertainty.
1892		Antipodean 1-3 91: A man who who plays a determined game is called a ‘battler’.
1893–4		H. Lawson ‘Stiffner and Jim’ in Roderick (1972) 127: I [...] told him never to pretend to me again that he was a battler.
1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 56: ‘She don’t look where I live,’ said Mr. Scott, gloomily. ‘Coz you ain’t er battler. Get in ’n’ bustle ’er.’.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 30/2: Mentally, he was far from being bright. Yet he managed to dodge along and get at least as much as any other Battler.
1918		C.J. Dennis ‘The Boys Out There’ in Digger Smith 74: I’ve got a dim / An’ ’azy notion in me ’ead / ’Ow they is battlers, born an’ bred.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 137: He put himself off as a battler, and talked big and hard.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 127: He had been a sturdy, hale, bull-voiced old battler in the days of the war.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 164: They were a new sort of people, the travellers; and he belonged to them. He did not belong to the Hourigans, who scratched a little plot of land, to the ‘cockies’, anxious and hard-working and greedy. He was a ‘battler’.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 78: Slippery Dick was making the concession of one battler to another.
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 54: I won the lottery once and spent the lot in six months. That’s how it is with the Australian battler.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 241: Hoping that there was an old battler, an old shearing cook who’d fill your sugar-bag with tucker.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 1: Meet the Foster family. Mr Foster is a battler. His name is Les. He lives in Darlo. He works as a garbo. He wants to win the Lotto.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 13/2: battler conscientious worker approved of by peers; reflects antipodean recognition of life’s strugglers.
1998		R.G. Barrett Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] Their parents were all battlers without much money.
1999		Observer 7 Nov. 23: The connotations of privilege so resented by the ‘battlers and bushies’.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 122: As far as I’m concerned and as far as a million other Labor-voting battlers are concerned, he will always be [...] the bloke who invited the ALP to the dance.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] [He] wonders if the tide of prosperity [...] has deposited any lasting wealth with the battlers of Port Silver.
2022		in D. Andrew Aussie Sl.

4. a prostitute.

1898		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. Red Page: A bludger is about the lowest grade of human thing, and is a brothel bully. [...] A battler is the feminine.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 11: Battlers as a nickname for street prostitutes has its root no doubt in ‘batter,’ slang for ‘on the street’ or ‘debauchery.’.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 170: She’s cashed her chips, that old battler, he thought. A two-bob touch around the corner, and who’d want to touch her?
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 13/2: battler [...] a prostitute independent of ponce or brothel.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

5. a formidable or domineering woman.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 11/3: The immense matron was generally backed up by two or more giggling damsels, with hats awry and hair all over the shop, who helped themselves after the older battler had done hugging and kissing the miserable victim.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 205: Here’s the Battler. And she don’t know nothing about this neither, see?

6. a thug, a violent gangster.

1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 83: But Shylock took his battler around through the sticks crackin’ the usual pushovers and turned two deaf ears to Antonio’s pleas for a match.
1935		(con. 1920s) McArthur & Long No Mean City 220: They took it for granted, readily enough, that he was a good ‘battler’.
1990		R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart (1991) 128: August de Koker was a plasterer by trade and what South Africans call a battler by nature [...] he was indiscriminately violent, especially when drunk.

7. within a given occupation, a second-rate practitioner.

1966

J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 25: ‘The only difference between a top trainer and a battler is a good horse’.

(Aus.) resolute, indefatigable (if unsuccessful).

1996

J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xxiv: When Broker’s Tip, with Hilton Cope up, knocked off Alrello with Black Oryz a battling third the two Gaming Squad constables didn’t join in the general Paddock excitement .

see sense 1 above.

see under rattler n.

(Aus.) to sell goods door-to-door in the suburbs.

[1939		Aus. Christian Commonwealth (SA) 10 Feb. 6/1: A LONELY BATTLER The little lady came in to see me the other day. For several years she has been battling along for her two children. She detested the idea of rations, and so went from door to door selling little articles to eke out a living].
1945		Baker Aus. Lang.
1953		Mail (Adelaide) 17 Oct. 4/4: Do You Know Australian Slang? [...] Things being slack the bluechin has started battling the subs.

see sense 1 above.

(Aus.) working as a prostitute.

1944

L. Glassop We Were the Rats 93: The girl was still staring. Perhaps she was, as Eddie would say, ‘on the battle’.

to masturbate.

2003

Number One Adult Sexual Health Terms Advisor 🌐 Masturbation Slang Male Terms: [...] battle the purple helmeted warrior of love.