Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(N.Z.) an individual professing no particular religious faith.

1938

Press (Canterbury) 2 Apr. 18: A ‘bush Baptist’ is of indeterminate religion.

the penis.

1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 44: And some of the other women would give these names, my Roger, my cockatoo, my nimble-wimble, bush-beater, claw-buttock, evesdropper, pick-lock, pioneer, bully-ruffin, smell-smock, trouble-gusset, my lusty live sausage.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 34: Bec a corbin = the penis; ‘the bush-beater’.

(Aus.) a vibrator.

1985

B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 34: The authorities publicly dismantle your kingsized flesh-pink bush-buzzer.

see separate entry.

(US) a cunnilinguist.

1969

L. Schecter Jocks 8: A New York newspaper used the phrase ‘bush-eater’ about a baseball player once only because neither the writer nor the editor knew what it meant.

sexual intercourse.

1896

Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 27: Bagatelle (la), f. Sexual intercourse; ‘bush-faking’.

sexual intercourse.

1772		G. Stevens ‘The Sentiment Song’ Songs Comic and Satyrical 125: Here’s the Nest in that Bush, and the Bird-nesting Lover; / Here’s Middlesex Bush-fighting, ---rest and recover.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 84: She does her supine exercise with the greatest judgment, fond of close attacks, always prefering bush-fighting to any other.
1793		Bacchanalian Mag. 50: Original and selected Toasts and Sentiments [...] Bush fighting.
1840		‘A Song of Sentiments’ in Fake Away Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 280: [as 1772].

see separate entry.

(S.Afr. gay) a lesbian.

2003

K. Cage Gayle.

1. (US) sexual foreplay.

1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 79/1: bush patrol necking.
1972		R.A. Wilson Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words.

2. (US) sexual intercourse.

1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1985		‘Jennifer Blowdryer’ Modern English 72: copulation (n): [...] Bush Patrol.

3. see also under SE compounds below.

see separate entries.

the female pubic hair (and genitals).

1833		song title in Tommarroo Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 338: The Little Bush Under the Hill.
1836		‘Toasts’ in New Cockalorum Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) II 24: The bush under the hill.

cunnilingus.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

(US) to perform cunnilingus.

1928		C. Panzram Journal of Murder in Gaddis & Long (2002) 116: A face artist is one who goes downtown for lunch and nose-dives into the bushes when he’s hungry.
c.1935		‘Mae West in “The Hip Flipper”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 95: Judging from the gusto with which the Schnozzolla was diving in the bush [etc.].
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 12: dive (v.): To practice cunnilinctus. Also: dive in the bushes.
1972		(con. 1950s) D. Goines Whoreson 162: Some niggers get awful mad when people infer that they go in the bushes.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 139: To tongue the clitoris and vulva. Syn: dive [in the bushes].

sexually intimate with a woman.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

to have sexual intercourse.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

sexual intercourse.

1980

Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 199: In any case, we would all agree that a push in the bush is worth two in the hand.

to have sexual intercourse.

2003

Sex Thes. 🌐.

(Aus.) an act of sexual intercourse.

1961

R.S. Close With Hooves of Brass 112: But the big, stupid kite! Dithering and frigging about instead of nicking into the scrub with her and give [sic] her a shove in the bush.

1. (Aus./US) mental deterioration due to over-prolonged residence in the bush.

1912		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Dec. 13/3: He had come to Perth to recover from an attack of what he called ‘bushitis’.
1925		W. Coast Sentinel (Streaky Bay, SA) 26 Sept. 8/2: Suddenly a hideous noise something between a dog’s bark and a fox’s howl, splits the air. ‘Shellback’ laughing, Bushitis I've got, he tells me. Ah, well! He cannot appreciate the country he is in.
1942		Balonne Beacon St George, Qld) 3 Dec. 3/6: But the bush is so depressing when there's no where we can go. / [...] / And we have to watch ourselves, we have and be careful what we do; / For there's a new disease that's come along to weaken and excite us. / And what a name they have for it, a funny word ‘Bushltls’.
1958		Oil & Gas Jrnl 56 98: Since the job was a long one efforts were made to overcome ‘bushitis,’ an ailment that causes men to tire of a location.

2. (Aus.) emotional succour gained from quitting the city for the bush.

1920

Aus. Worker (Sydney) 1 Apr. 10/5: Possibly, he was suffering fromthat most deadly of all diseases, Cityitis. He has decided that Bushitis is the antidote, and all lovers of [...] memorable literature will hope that the mountains [...] endow him with, the balm of complete physical regeneration.

see under ape n.

(Aus.) one whose overlong stay in the desert has driven them mad.

1963

R. McGregor-Hastie Compleat Migrant 105: Bushbaby: a man who has spent too long in the desert, and is off his head.

(Aus.) to travel in the bush, either on foot, a bicycle or in a four-wheeled off-road vehicle; also as n.

1971		Woroni (Canberra, ACT) 5 Apr. 13/2: CYCLE CLUB REPORT The first outing held this year was a bush-bash and picnic, held in the pine forest .
1974		Aus. Women’s Wkly 16 Jan. 24/4: After leaving camp seven, we did some hard bush-bashing (a term used by bushwalkers when pushing through thick, trackless stretches) to a lunch spot under a twisted old paperbark tree.
1988		Times (Victor Harbor, SA) 1 June 3/1: Four Encounter Coast businessmen are setting off this Wednesday on a high speed 5,000km bush bash through the State’s far north to help raise money for handicapped children.
1997		L. Davies Candy 26: It began to seem daunting. I hadn’t been expecting so much bush bashing.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 39: bush bash To tramp difficult terrain, or let your 4WD do the job. In Australia it refers to clearing virgin bush.
2011		P. Thomas Peter Bush 128: Next thing a helicopter would swoop over the hill, having covered in 20 minutes as much ground as we had in three days of bush bashing.

see beat about the bush under beat v.

(US) an ugly woman.

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.

see under bunny n.¹

1. (Aus.) a (young) emu; also used for various other conspicuous ground birds.

1987		F. Geiser in Physiological Zoology 60 (1)93/1: I wish to thank Meredith Smith for her loan of several pygmy possums and John Coventry for allowing me to use his pitfall traps in the Big Desert and partake of his dinkum bush chooks.
1991		Woroni (Canberra) 21 Oct. 18/1: Just like in Australia where kangaroos hop down the urban center streets, where there’s no indoor plumbing, and where drop bears and bush chooks are the terrorists of the bush.
2003		Siu Ling Hui Victoria Market: History, Recipes, Stories 80: This is the home of the magnificent Bush Chook, the ultimate bird for a true-blue Australian Christmas roast. Bush Chook is the nickname for a young emu about eighteen weeks old.
2009		Age (Melbourne) 21 Nov. n.p.: The wetland is home to tens of thousands of red gum and black box eucalypts, and, when wet, is home to masses of wildlife including black-tailed native hens (known as ‘bush chook’ to Parks Victoria ranger Shane Southon), spoonbills and ducks.
2011		Urban Dict. 13 Sept. 🌐 Bush Chook A nickname given to the emu by rural farmers and country folk of Australia.

2. (Aus., also bushie, chook) Swan Brewery’s Emu Bitter or Emu Export brand beer; a can or bottle of this beer.

2009		Wikipedia 17 Feb. 🌐 Emu Bitter is colloquially known as [...] ‘Bush Chooks’.
2012		Facebook: Save the Bush Chook 17 Oct. 🌐 The closure of the Swan Brewery in Canning Vale, WA, means that WA’s premier beer is under threat. Save the Bush Chook!
2014		Wreck Em 3 Feb. 🌐 Upon arrival I was greeted with what was soon to be known as the greatest beer Australia has produced, ‘the bush chook’, Emu Export.
2016		Facebook: Bring Back The Bush Chooks 25 Dec. 🌐 First Bushie of 2017 proper............enjoy!
2016		Sydney Morn. Herald 25 June 🌐 I’ve never seen such reverence for Emu Export from so many beer lovers after the chook calamity was posted on Facebook.
2018		Pilbara News (Karratha, WA) 21 Mar. 🌐 The old bush chook ads come with the catch cry ‘would you go an export mate’.

a gypsy.

1822		Boxiana IX 463: Little Gadzee once fought successfully, though not victoriously, against Jack Cooper the Bush-cove. Jack Cooper the Bush-cove licked west-country Dick.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.

see separate entry.

1. (Aus.) a red-headed woman, occas. man (see cite 1941).

1941		Aus. Women’s Wkly 29 Mar. 19/1: ‘Hello, hello!’ I said [...] ‘Off to meet a girl, I suppose?’ But the bushfire blond only glowed. ‘Mal, [...] I'm going along to meet her father’.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 76: Bushfire blonde, a red-haired girl or woman.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 61: Don’t try to cut the flash with me. That bushfire blonde didn’t give you the first looko.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 83: He’s hanging out for his first root and has his eyes on a bushfire blonde in the corner.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 40: bushfire blonde 1. A redheaded woman. [...] ANZ.

2. cherry brandy and lemonade.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 40: bushfire blonde [...] Cherry brandy and lemonade. [...] ANZ.

(US) a peasant.

1984

W.M. Henderson Stark Raving Elvis 11: With Elvis as your guide there was no need to hide your bush-hog status [...] here was a true bush-hog, with no roots, no culture.

(orig. US prison) an escape.

1927		H. Yenne ‘Prison Lingo’ in AS II:6 281: Bush parole—One that runs away from an institution is said to do his parole in the bushes.
1937		A. Herndon Let Me Live 249: There’s a chain gang down in Georgia / That will soon be missing me, / For by my soul A ‘bush parole’ / Will pardon me.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 8: A Linkhorn had finally taken bush parole, fleeing his Scottish bondage for the brave new world.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 793: bush parole – Escape from prison.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 199: bush parole, n. – escaping; leaving without permission: ‘He left on bush parole.’.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 108: Jackrabbit Parole Escape. (Archaic: bush parole).
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Bush Pass: An escape or walk-away. (TN).

1. (US prison) an escape.

1957		J. Blake letter 1 Oct. in Joint (1972) 107: The Wisconsin authorities allowed him to return here to serve out a Florida bit that was interrupted when he took bush patrol from a road camp at Pompano.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 108: Bush Patrol To escape from prison.

2. see also sl. compounds above.

1. (US campus) an extremely ugly woman [note acronym c. 1986 T.T.B.B.R.: ‘turn that bush pig round’, used when a woman thus described enters a public house].

1984		Tracks (Aus.) Aug. 3: And as for the dickhead who thinks that westy girls are ‘bushpigs’ we’d like to say ‘get fucked,’ and have a look at your own surfie chicks with their floppy brown tits trotting along behind you waxheads like drooling puppies. So up yours [Moore 1993].
1999		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 27 June 11: They talked about women as bushpigs.
2005		Indep. 10 Sept. 22/1: Growing up as a surfie girl in Australia where women were referred to as ‘bushpigs’, ‘swamp hogs’ or ‘maggots’.

2. (Aus.) a general insult, irrespective of sex; also attrib.

1999		G. Seal Lingo 127: In between [the extremes of insult] lies an enormous and subtly graded range of possibilities that include the following: [...] bush pig; clown; crawler; dead loss; dead head; derro; dick; dickhead; drongo; face-ache; galah.
2008		K.F. Bartolo in Pragmatics & Intercultural Comms 14: I don’t know what these half-literate bogan, bush pig expressions mean. They make us sound so cheap and uneducated.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] A long, convoluted impro [...] that ended with me and my bush-pig older sister Sharon getting into a punch-up.

3. (Aus. prison) a female prison officer.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Bush pig. Generally any female prison officers but particularly if considered unattractive, overweight or officious. May be generalised to other women.

(orig. Aus.) a network of gossip and rumour that brings news, often inaccurate, before the official sources.

1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 50: He had obtained the news by the mysterious ‘bush wireless’ route. [Ibid.] 94: There is no solution to the greatest mystery of penal life — ‘jail wireless’.
2009		C. Coulter Bush Wives & Girl Soldiers 24: Rumors, locally referred to as bush radio, are an integral part of Sierra Leonean rural life.

1. (UK Und.) a low class prostitute.

1841

F.L.G. Swells Night Out n.p.: From the aristocratic nymph of Pentonville Hill, to the poor bush ranger or hedge prowler of Highgate Fields.

2. (Aus.) a petty swindler; one who takes unfair advantage of others.

1843		Launceston Advertiser 19 April in M. Cash Life and Adventures 177: The Criminal Court has been occupied the whole week in trying the bushrangers. They have all been found guilty.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend II 328: How suspicious you are! Bush-rangers again, I suppose. They are always running in your mind – them and gold.
1864		E. Wardley Confessions of Wavering Worthy 167: The bush-rangers [...] turned out only to be an elderly man and a youth, well-armed, who had recently adopted the trade.
1879		W.J. Barry Up and Down 21: Two bushrangers who stole our horses.
1893		K. Mackay Out Back 129: My father in league with bushrangers?
1899		E.W. Hornung Amateur Cracksman (1992) 59: There are some brand-new bushrangers on the road between Whittlesea and this – a second Kelly gang!
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 24 Aug. 738: I was face to face with none other than the notorious Australian bushranger known as Tom Ryan.
1913		Marvel 9 Aug. 1: The bushranger held a revolver levelled at Pete’s head.
1926		J. Doone Timely Tips For New Australians 16: BUSHRANGER.—An armed highwayman who confines his operations to the open country with, perhaps, occasional raids on small townships.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 70: Audacious swindlers, bushrangers and other criminals.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 231/1: bushranger – originally an escaped convict; later the roving bandit of the bush and outback; nowadays sometimes a person who takes advantage of others.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 75: An old chum of mine from Wandsworth days, one Cyril Duncombe, sometimes known, for reasons into which we need not go, as the Bushranger.

(US) a peasant, a hillbilly.

1935		in DARE.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl. §391.4: backwoods man, bush rat.
1966		D. Niland Pairs and Loners 160: Yeah, he’s all right, I s’pose, for a bush rat.

1. (Aus.) a boor, a bumpkin [SAusE scrubber, one who lives in the scrub; also bush scrubber, a second-rate, under-nourished cow].

1896

in E.E. Morris Austral Eng. (1898) 72/1: Modern. Up-country manservant on seeing his new mistress: ‘My word! a real lady! she’s no bush-scrubber!’.

2. a rural prostitute [scrubber n. (4a)].

1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 148: The compilers ought to have looked farther afield and found: […] bush scrubber (rural pro).

see separate entry.

(Aus.) a fig. ‘week’ when dubious deals may be proposed and confidence tricks carried out; usu. in phr. What do you think this is? Bush Week?, used to fend off what is considered a dubious suggestion.

[1920		Bathurst Times (NSW) 9 Apr. 4/5: Other delegates stated that members working on the land would not be able to attend unless at extreme inconvenience. A Voice: This is not bush week].
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 76: The time-honoured chant of derision What’s this, bush week?
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 37: Do you think a man’s a mug? I get smart alecks like you trying to put one over on me every minute of the day. What do you think this is? Bush Week?
1950		Argus (Melbourne) 20 June 6/2: They have been mystified by such intensively Australian bon mots as [...] ‘What’s this, Bush week?’ .
1965		Minneapolis Star (MN) 9 Feb. 32/1: I said, ‘What do you think this is, bushweek?’.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 82: Some lazybones, who compound their sins by being cheeky, when asked ‘What do you think this is? Bush Week?’ will answer back, ‘Yes, and you’re the sap!’.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 13: Bushweek: A situation where everything is a bloody mess when it shouldn’t be, or where something has gone wrong and the perpetrator of the action is taking advantage of the person making the charge: ‘What do you think this is, bloody bush week?’.

see bush radio

see beat about the bush under beat v.

1. to go wild, to go mad.

1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 76: Hees too much damn trouble here Oscar hees gone bush 3 times allready.
1949		I.L. Idriess One Wet Season 150: Take a pull on yourself, Womba, or you’ll be going bush in the horrors.
1975		K. Willey Ghosts of the Big Country 177: And the dead went ‘Poof’ and we all went bush / Down by the Daly River-O!
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 13: To ‘go bush’ means [...] to have gone mad.
2000		J. Stevenson London Bridges (2001) 231: George has gone bush. He just warned me not to talk to you.

2. to seek the solitude and privacy of the bush.

1908		J. Gunn We of the Never-Never (1962) 3: The women-folk spoke of a woman ‘going bush’ as ‘sheer madness.’ Besides, no woman travels during the Wet. [Ibid.] 114: Fortunately Dan was ‘bush’ again among the cattle.
1923		J. Armour Spell of the Inland 207: Webb has gone bush.
1926		K.S. Prichard Working Bullocks 75: They understood [...] why Red had gone bush and loafed round brumby hunting.
1934		A. Russell Tramp-Royal 78: Milbuka had fled, ‘gone bush’ that morning.
1946		D. Stivens Courtship of Uncle Henry 172: At twelve o’clock he had left the field and gone bush.
1955		F.B. Vickers Mirage (1958) 247: Arty gets a wire from his missus to say as one of the kids has gone bush and got lost.
1959		D. Niland Gold in the Streets (1966) 118: Heard he was going bush.
1969		A. Buzo Rooted III i: I’ve decided to go bush and sort myself out.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 82: Every holidays we had, we always went back to my grandparents, went bush, digging honey-ants and barley.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 141: He and his black friends would ‘go bush’ for days on end.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 88: go bush Go into hiding, usually in rough country, to avoid debt or jail or threat, or simply to get away from hustle and bustle to peace and quiet. ANZ C20.
2012		D. Whish-Wilson ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Drifted into the only union that would have them, the Painters and Dockers, before my Dad went bush.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘He used to come out sometimes, go bush, camp out overnight. Said he liked the solitude’.

3. of farm animals, to run free.

1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 233/2: go bush – [...] to run wild, if livestock.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 25: Suppose one of youse had been lumbered with some newchum dimwit who’d let a few of yer woolly jumbucks go bush, eh?

4. in fig. use, to escape a place or situation and vanish.

1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 233/2: go bush – [...] If somebody gets out of jail and hides, he’s ‘gone bush’.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 30: Of course the Sydney contest organisers had gone bush.

5. to get away from routine.

1967

J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 16: Won’t have any difficulty in finding one or two of the boys who’d love to go bush for a week or so.

(US prison) to escape.

1992

Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 108: Make Bush [...] To escape from prison.

see out of one’s tree under tree n.