Green’s Dictionary of Slang

boshter n.

[boshter adj.]

(Aus.) something or someone outstanding.

[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Mar. 24/3: Mitchell was matched against M’Gowan, and the fight should be the ‘boshter’ of the season.
Murchison Times (Cue, WA) 25 Dec. 4/3: [advert] MA! Square FATHER XMAS to put a BOSHTER In My Stocking.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 2 May 12/2: I manage to make a holiday trip to Smelbourne every year and get hold of the latest in slang. Last year ‘boshter’ (as in ‘a real boshter’ – a real beauty, a dazzler) was the prevailing expression. This year ‘bonzah’ holds sway. It has precisely the same meaning. Imagine a future slang dictionary – ‘Boshter (obsolete), a bonzah.’.
[Aus]Traralgon Record (Vic.) 25 Aug. 3/1: [W]e made a start downhill into Walhalla, along the famous Little Joe hill, the road on which is indescribable, or perhaps as ‘Mud’ called it, a ‘boshter’.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Jan. 4/7: He’s a boshter at figgers.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 22 May 4/8: I’ve started playing ping-pong with a boshter in a blouse.
[Aus]E. Dyson ‘Benno’s Little Boshter’ in Fact’ry ’Ands 1: ‘She’s er little boshter – er BOSHTER! ’n’ I’m ’er one ’n’ only.’.
[Aus]Sun (Kalgoorlie) 14 July 7/7: Two eight-year-olds, male and female, playing the ancient game of marbles in Cumberland-street, Kookynie. Boy, after a good shot which almost skinned the ring: ‘‘E’s a bonzer tor, ain’t ’e?’ Girl: ‘A fair boshter’ .
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 13 May 26/1: In the words of the barracker, Saturday’s match was a real blanky bonzerina – a boshter of the most bonzer type.
[Aus]E. Dyson ‘The Truculent Boy’ in Benno and Some of the Push 48: D’jer know me ’n’ Nip’s goin’ t’ run a circus? [...] It’ll be a boshter, too.
[Aus]Examiner (Launceston, Tas.) 4 Nov. 2/5: A single-out race for maiden-ringed birds [...] result was:- W. Wise’s ‘It’s a Boshter’, 50 min. 57% sec.
[Aus]All Abaht It Nov. 13: He’s proved himself a boshter, / Has Major J.P.
[Aus]Punch (Melbourne) 18 July 39/1: ‘She said I was a boshter, or a bon-toshter, or a bit of all right, or somethin’ of the sort’.
[Aus]Townsville Daily Bulletin 18 Nov. 7/4: Blow me if Skeeter didn’t land a fish — a big boshter.

In derivatives

boshterino/boshterina (n.)

a supreme female/male example of sense 1; also in adj. use.

[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 3 July 1/2: Boshter, boshterino (same as bonza) – Most probably a corruption of ‘hooshta,’ the Afghan camel-driver’s word of command to the patient dromedary.
[Aus]Truth (Perth) 21 Oct. 6/3: The Perth Johnnies vote like Boulder Belles to be blithering boshterinos. Several of the city chappies are contemplating chasing cops up in the Golden Belt as a result.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Mar. 9/1: When the tribe of pommies, jimmy-grants, and unregistered lime-juice lickers hears a native of the soil – who is a groper – refer to them in any of the following term, a ‘boshter,’ ‘bontodger,’ ‘bonza,’ ‘boshterino’ or ‘bosker’ bloke, he need not go sour and agitate his Lancashire clogs with the intention of kicking the spruiker of this chat in the ‘darby kell’ because all these expressions represent the dead limit of admiration.
[Aus]Punch (Melbourne) 17 May 8/6: ‘Boshterina’ Billie Burke quite emulates the title an enthusiastic Sydney pressman bestowed upon her.